Go ahead! Say it!  It’s Global Warming!  That’s what’s driving the locals out of the fields and into the black markets…  OK, just kidding.  But we really are being all PC about this- not naming the “markets” that are creating the demand for the horns that give the poachers a reason to get out of their cots in the morning…  But in the same breath not being afraid to call out the corruption that wracks the local enforcement efforts!

And Goodness!  Such a face on Poor Jacob Hickman!  He looks like Ed Dunlap after he had his arrowheads and what-not stolen from him…

Sorry to fixate on the red whistle, but there it is again…  and if Kaden is in “Club Jacob” then so must be Taurus?  Based on his outfit and how it is accessorized?  Well, it’s a good thing that Jacob is skilled in the ways of the wilderness…  but a “survivalist?”  Does that mean he’s a “Prepper,” one who has dug himself a bunker and stored in it all manner of non-perishable foods?  Cigars and Whiskey?  A gun to keep out those who “didn’t believe?”

“So yes… before I devoted my life to the Rhinos’ plight, I was Stateside selling used cars… and realized that my life was a sham- every car I sold had a history that I couldn’t bring myself to tell my customers, for if they knew, they would never buy…  I was good at it- too good!  So with a fat bank account and a deficit in my Karmic balance, I struck out and stumbled on the worthiest and most selfless cause I could find… The White Rhino…”

Survived the crash?  How about kidnapped by the poachers?  Boy, Mark, for a writer you can be awfully dense…  lovable, but dense.  Funny you didn’t RUN INTO HIM while you were out gallivanting in the bush… like two ships, apparently.  And Yes, Boys and Girls, don’t even THINK of heading to Africa unless you are accompanied by a man with a red whistle hanging around his neck- that tells you that he has been through training and holds the highest level of White-Client-Protection skills… Even though, as we saw, it was Mark that did all the protecting…

So this is where it ends?  You have no questions for Jacob Hickman?  The object of your story?  No background, no point of view?  No “and what do you do now to save the Rhino?”   I suppose that James Allen wants to wrap this story up.  I can’t blame him… It was June 7^th when Editor Bill Ellis called Mark to tell him he was going to AFRICA!  That’s over 90 days and a good 30 days past the usual story time- the usual Meant Time to Lost Forest (MTTLF) is around 60…

And now I am picturing the Rhino with notches on its belt or its bedpost… one for every vehicle run off the road?? And look who’s all smiles in panel two…  yes, Lori Tompkins, that’s who, after a ride or two on the Trail-go-round, and realizing that her life will no longer be held back by that Guy with the Gambling Problem, she is positively aglow!

Ed Carlson?? What kind of a name is that for a bad guy?  Sounds like a high school chemistry teacher from Anoka… oh wait, there is precedence for that, isn’t there?  At least in a certain fictionalized account…

And back in some city in Rwanda, which we know because it’s the same restaurant that brought Mark, Chris (um… Dirty) and Lori together, and because in the background we see a lady carrying her (what- Laundry??) on her head… Nice that these two kids can continue to hang out for days… doing what?? Now that we have the “new Mark,” the mind absolutely races…  two handsome people, on another continent, for all anyone knows who are meant to be together…  yikes… calling Cherry, Calling Cherry- by the way Mark, did you call Cherry?  I know that would be an expensive call, but still…

And now for the plot twist to end all plot twists…  Jacob Hickman!  What the… recall that Jacob Hickman’s truck was found at the bottom of a cliff without him in it… unexploded we presume, but that the “worst was feared” as it pertained to his current location and condition… and now he just turns up how many days (or weeks) later waving to Mark from across the linen tablecloths, like they are old friends.  Of course Mark is famous, depending on the circles traveled, and Jacob, we presume, was expecting him…  OK, then… let’s start writing that story!

With Lori perched on the Doctor’s shoulder, she didn’t have to ask Mark the question… The question to which she already knew the answer…  Yes.  The Rat-Bastard is dead.  C’mon… really?  Name one redeeming quality displayed by the character.  I am having trouble summoning any grief at all.  Relief is more like it.

And where does the story go now?  Lori, remember, you are the one with a future here!  Your Dental Practice! (How random is that…?)  Don’t go all to pieces!  Your life just got better!  Boy what heel I am…

What’s Gnu, Pussycat??  Oh, I know.  Mark has gone from punching bad guys to nursing them back to health.  The explosion should have torn Dirty Dyer asunder from stem to stern, but it seems to only have mottled his complexion slightly, with his butch cut intact and Mark’s giant paw soothing him…  good lord, really??

The Rover is still in hover mode… which I am sure keeps our patient as comfortable as possible as they head to a… Hospital??  I mean they are out in the freakin’ bush, here, people.  It had better be a mud hut with a witch doctor if this story line is to recover any smidgeon of credibility…

Need I remind anyone of the explosion that happened a couple of “days” ago?  No one, I mean NO ONE, gets out of that one alive…  or at least not horribly disfigured…

Yet, here is Mark, selfless to his core, diving in and pulling Dirty from the flaming wreckage.  While Taurus and Lori look on in disbelief, as if to say, “You know Mark, he’s kind of an asshole.  And a poacher.  Let the SOB burn…”

Come to think of it, I don’t think Mark ever called Chris by his chosen Handle…  I guess Mark sees the good in everyone, even lying, thieving, murderous poachers…  Of course, in another time, under another pen, we let bad guys fall to their death…

When last we saw the Trail-mobile, it was all a-hover over the rocky terrain, and now it has maneuvered itself down the sheer face of the cliff that spelled doom for Chris “Dirty” Dyer…

In a more shocking development, Taurus’ face has lost all pigment… He looks ashen compared to Mark’s ruddy glow in panel two… But really Mark, what is it you are running to?  Cooked Chris?  Dyer in the Fryer?  If he pulls Dirty out of the Driver’s Seat unharmed, this story line will have taken a seriously implausible turn, even for the world of comics.  The force of the impact-generated blow would have left him somewhat less than intact…

I have to say, I laughed when I saw this morning’s installment!  Why is it we feel nothing when an unsympathetic character gets what he has coming to him… But honestly I thought we would find “Dirty” Dyer alive and awaiting his reckoning – Trail-Style…  Instead, it appears that the truck was also carrying nitroglycerin or some other highly volatile substance…  Vehicles going nose-down onto a rock simply don’t explode, do they?  Maybe they do…

The car parts flying every which-a-way for good measure…  nice touch.  Don’t think Dirty is walking away from this one…

Well, we certainly can’t utter the time worn phrase, “there’s never a cliff or a canyon when you need one…”  And it’s a good thing there are two Rhinos in play here, otherwise one could never explain how the attack moved from starboard to port in a mere blink of an eye…

Well, Dirty, it was nice meeting you.  At least we won’t have to endure all the bad dialogue and references to wagering any more.  And the cargo of Rhino horn can be turned over to authorities and won’t be making its way into the Asian market to be ground and sold along with false promises of stamina and virility…

And in case anyone is skeptical, here’s a video “proving” that Rhino have a taste for jeep…  or this one…

Really, Dirty?  That’s the best you can muster?  “Those beasts are ramming my truck?” Considering that EVERY statement made in this world is punctuated by an exclamation point, they sort of lose their meaning when the time comes where you really need one…

Certainly it’s only a matter of time before Dirty finds himself impaled on that prodigious horn (has it grown from yesterday??) protruding from the snout of the great beast… only just desserts for such foul play!  Let me remind you that Mark hasn’t returned the punch that Dirty landed some days back…  This is very disturbing.  I sincerely hope that opportunity is not lost.  Mark punching a corpse would not have the same effect…

Well, Dirty, here’s a little payback for ya…  Hoist by your own Petard, as my Grandpa used to say…

The horn on the one in the foreground has got to go a foot or more…  yikes.  Junior is getting a lesson in protecting territory, and judging by the size of Mommy and Daddy, Dirty isn’t going to make it out of this one…

Or dumb bad luck!  The three remaining live Rhino with intact horns are staked out on the only road into town, “knowing” (of course) that the Horns of their Brethren are coming their way… Of course they really couldn’t know that, but what the heck, right?

Sorry, but from the front they really are ugly beasts, aren’t they??

It would have been so much more entertaining to watch a Bull Elephant lift up the car and put it on its side… But instead we see the car, excuse me, the SUV, now airborne and exclaiming with great zeal that Chris must be caught!

I rather miss all the stilted dialogue that was the main mock-able feature of the Elrod/Dodd era…  Now we just have day upon day of single panel after single panel featuring animal drawings…

Just as Walter White learned that a Big Blue Barrel of Bundled Benjamins Becomes Burdensome, Dirty ferries his cargo, slowly, and with much dust being kicked up in the process, to wherever or with whomever he is going to make a deal…

Dreadful?  Really? Does anyone use that word anymore?  How about Hell-hole?  God-Forsaken?  Armpit?  But this is the Trailverse, so dreadful it is!  Only for those who chose to rape and pillage and don’t understand beauty when they see it…

The vehicle of “Born Free” fame, legendary for is reputation of ruggedness, is taken out by a simple swerve off-road?  Isn’t that what these trucks are made to do?  Or is it an SUV, which is apparently in the “style-guide” of any major metropolitan newspaper or news-service…  Why is it that if there is a vehicle involved in anything newsworthy, and it happens to be shaped or configured in a certain way, we have to know that it’s an SUV?  We never see headlines calling out a “hybrid” or an “electric vehicle… I wonder…

Honestly, though, Chris “Dirty” Dyer can’t catch a break, can he?  Or is it not clear to him by now that the “odds” are not with him (ha! get the not-so-subtle gambling reference he’s been so prone to use??) and he will not be prevailing- not while Mark Trail is in his Orbit!

Now there’s something you see every day…

Enough with the animal drawings …  why not show an Escargatoire, Rout or Walk of Snails… That’s about as fast as this story line is moving…

At some point, no matter the enterprise, whether for good or evil, trust comes into play…  A man’s word is his bond, his reputation his calling card.  I don’t know who raised you, Chris Dyer, but you are a double dealing, underhanded, lying sack of sh*t.  “Betting” that your next “Move” will land you in the tall cotton…  When in fact you are perpetuating a life that will always have you looking for your next score, looking over your shoulder for the last person you screwed…

What indeed, Dirty…  What indeed.  Probably the ghost of Jacob Hickman…

How large is this herd?  Could we have just driven around it?  Now we are firing off more rounds and traumatizing the poor beasts?  And Mark joins the party with the car horn.  Nice.

But we can still see Dirty off in the distance… All is not lost.  Maybe Taurus is a crack shot and can shoot out tires from 100 yards…