All this ennui is starting to get to me…  “***sigh*** it’s time I severed our Partnership, Justin…”  Riveting, just riveting…  I can barely look away.  I am losing sleep over whether Mitchum will be foiled and Cherry will be returned to Mark.  Well, not really.

But them Justin utters that time-honored line, “You don’t have to do this…” or something like that…  It’s what every bad guy hears while his victim awaits their fate… It didn’t work in “No Country for Old Men,” and it’s not going to work now…

Mitchum is starting to get rattled, ladies and gentlemen!  And Justin is becoming ever more the irritant…  It would seem, though, that BGwB is in no hurry to go retrieve “his buddy…”  Notice how we haven’t invested anything in the way of naming these two scoundrels for hire…

But What’s Cherry up to?  Is she bound and gagged, sitting and waiting patiently for “her man??” Not likely, as we have seen the new Cherry take matters into her own hands more than once, and we have yet to see the new Mark Trail lay low any baddies…  but we are hopeful, right?  Mark has to get his punch back, or the balance of the Trail-verse will be off for good.  James Allen, if you are reading this, please send us the old Mark, the one with chiseled fists and daring-do…

Geesh!  Stifle already!  Nice full moon!  Lit up like daylight!  Not good for sneaking up… but there they are, ripe for the taking, but how?  There’s been no plan made, so is this a total improv operation??

And Really… Who the Hell is BRUCE, anyway?  That has got to be the dumbest name for a boat ever…  Why not ROBERT?  Or TED?  Maybe those were already taken.

Have to admit, I am a little bored with this whole story.  It’s OK, you can say it.  We really don’t care about Cherry, much less this idiot industrialist clique…  Let them squabble all they want, it’s all intramural anyway.  And with the SWAN blown to bits, we only have this ugly shark boat to draw…

Sleepy, languid, unflappable…

And Mark, if you say “Flat-Bottom” one more time I am going ask that Vince take you out with the pole…

Ever wonder whether Mark is going to catch on the fact that every time Editor Bill Ellis calls, his life or someone he is close to is put in mortal danger?  Maybe just once Mark will say, “Uh, no thanks, Bill, everywhere you send me I end up in a tight spot…”  And what does Bill do when Mark is away?  Editing?  Editing what? Are there other feature writers at Woods and Wildlife??  Now were he the Publisher, then he would have other duties… But editors needs stories to edit.