Page 35 of Rangers Last Promise

Wolf takes it and moves beneath the emergency light.

The piece shows part of a camouflage uniform and a man’s hand resting against a rough stone wall.

“Is it from the missing unit picture?” Sheriff Tate asks.

Wolf nods. “I think so.”

Mara places Grant’s journal beside it.

“Why did Grant write ‘Last Stand wall’? This tavern didn’t exist when he died.”

Wolf’s expression grows distant.

“The tavern didn’t. The Last Stand did.”

“What was it?”

“An abandoned outpost near the valley where Grant died. Our unit used it as a temporary base during the final weeks of the deployment. The men before us called it Outpost Seven. Grant renamed it the Last Stand after we were pinned down there for two days.”

Trigger takes the fragment from Wolf.

“The picture was taken against the west wall of the outpost,” he says. “Wolf hung the original in the tavern when he opened it. That’s where the name came from.”

Mara looks at the strip of paper hidden inside the journal.

“Eight. Seventeen. Twenty-three. Last Stand wall.”

I take the strip from her and turn it over.

Nothing is written on the back.

“The numbers could identify points in the photograph,” I say. “Men, stones, markings.”

“Or a date,” Sheriff Tate suggests.

“August seventeenth, twenty-three,” Mara says. “But Grant died fifteen years ago. That date hadn’t happened yet.”

“Then they aren’t a date,” Wolf says.

Trigger studies the empty hook on the wall.

“The photograph showed eight men.”

My pulse changes.

“Eight?”

Wolf nods. “The six of us from Mara’s copy, plus two men standing at the edges.”

“Who were they?” Sheriff Tate asks.

“Hampton was one.”

The name settles over the room.

Mara looks at me.

“And the other?”