It’s 5:00 and you need to turn in now…  I always hated that when I was a kid in the summer-  I’d have to go to bed and it was still light out!  But wait… isn’t Rusty a teenager by now?  This is really weird.  But then what isn’t when it comes to the Trail’s home life??  And is that Rusty’s room, that little shed on the right side of the house?

Johnny Lone Elk?  Hmmm, not sure we have made his acquaintance… And who calls just to say they saw a pair of Wolves?

And Mark, you are not impressing her in the least!  They are Coyotes, dum-dum! The kind that howl, not the kind that traffic in human lives… we had a brush with those at the start of the cave “adventure.”

But why, Mark?  Why think about wolves?  You’re not making any sense.  And for the record, a Coyote “howl” is more of a “yip, yip, yip” anyway…

Or is that Doc playing Poet Laureate?  Or reading from Bram Stocker’s Dracula…

Regardless, I am sure Mark is snug and smug in the knowledge that all is calm… Little does he know that Dirty Dyer is coming for him!

To his friends he’s still “Dirty,” but to the authorities he’s “Mr. Smith?” And how’d he come by that fake passport?  Such intrigue!  A regular James Bond!  Although James Bond never felt the need to have an alias…  He was always Bond… James Bond.

And I am a bit confused… doesn’t one clear customs upon arrival and not departure?  Oh, well…  In these days of extreme vetting, I guess anything is possible…

This story does cause me to wonder about the field of opportunity that lies with all the people that Mark has “wronged” in the name of doing “right.”  They do their time in jail, pay their debt, and then what?   What do they have to do?  What have they been stewing about for months other than to get back at the one who took them down!  Interesting!

…will not be stalled or stopped by a pretty face in a safari hat… such is the zeal and the desire (we assume) to “right” certain “wrongs” done to him by The Trail…

But poor Lee… she thinks that it’s another case of her coming on too strong… story of her life, we are to suppose…  And a measure of her loneliness, wanting to take on a guy who calls himself “Dirty…”  But hey, maybe she’s into that kind of thing.

Still, as Chris ponders what could have been, it looks like we are in send-up mode to what could be a clash of… titans? Well, maybe not that big, but certainly words will be exchanged, and dare I hope?? Fists flying?  Recall, that Chris was willing to engage before, even if Mark was not…

And by “George” I mean Faithful Reader and Constant Commenter George Atkins…

I’ll lay a bet Chris is going back to the States and gunning for Mark. But Mark will happen to be called away to Africa by Ms Hunter!  So Chris will go to Lost Forest and find Mark where he just came from.  So he’ll go back, leading to a lot of travel time for Chris and a bad case of jet lag.  Adventure will ensue.

And we can tell that Dirty has been in Africa for “a few years” by how little starch is left in his epaulets… I’m sure it’s difficult to find a decent laundry on skid row…  let’s hope he figured out a way to get a weekly bath in, otherwise I don’t envy his fellow passengers…

But is this the end of the “lion” adventure?  Did we go all the way to Africa just to “bump” into Chris Dyer so that we can now follow his exploits?  Reminds me of that brief interlude at Lost Forest with the hunky archer just so Cherry could later pick up a bow and save the day in the Great Dismal Swamp…  Boy, I have been at this for a while… and will soon answer the question of whether a man can prosper by retaining a somewhat encyclopaedic knowledge of Mark Trail and his exploits…

How on earth can you turn down an invitation (by a stunning lady, no less) for a trip back into the wild?  What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger, right??

The look on Ol’ Dirty’s face in panel three would suggest that the wounds and scars from the rhino-horn incident will be long-to-heal… a bit of post-traumatic stress, I’d wager. I am still trying to nail what the scar outline reminds me of… the state of Indiana is all I’m coming up with…

Rather bold of you, Ms. Hunter… to invite a man, who only days (minutes?) before you considered “rude,” on your little safari…

…Chris “Dirty” Dyer can put together clues- like when  a lady is going hunting because she is wearing a safari get-up…  and even though Dirty probably hasn’t been out in the bush since he was pulled from the flaming wreckage of his crashed jeep, he only has these silly “great white hunter” clothes to wear, having blown his last farthing on making himself look bonafide…

Ms. Hunter doesn’t mind sharing what she’s up to, either!  Normally people out on the hunt/fish are a bit more circumspect about where they are going and what they are up to.  But people in the Trailverse signal their moves boldly, so there it is… Welcome back, Chris!

Oh my… last we set eyes on Chris “Dirty” Dyer he was being foiled by Mark Trail as a poacher and smuggler of Rhinoceros Horns!  And the fact the he was pronounced dead… and DEAD… clearly a ruse to get him out of trouble, since he was about to face charges!

But what’s with the massive burn mark and eye patch… in his last close-up he looked fairly ravaged, seemed to have both his eyes intact…

And how, I wonder, has he managed to keep what’s left of his body and soul together after being pronounced dead?  What schemes has he been concocting, what scams has he been running?  And wouldn’t he have assumed a new identity?  Or at least a new handle??  Oh, this ought to be good…

Oh and the irony remains thick on the dental front… recall that Dirty’s erstwhile lover Lori was a dentist in good standing trying to “fix” her man, and the killer of Cecil the Lion was also a dentist…

Like shooting fish in a Barrel?  This idiom is so puzzling…  imagine someone learning the English language, what could this possibly mean?  Easy as Pie?  Like taking candy from a baby?  all very curious…  And of course we all assume that there is water in the barrel and the fish are alive and swimming around.  But I agree with the video blogger… what is the point?

Quite the defensive reaction in panel two… Guessing Ms. Hunter has heard just about enough of this nonsense… why, her gun is oiled, her rounds are packed, and her trigger finger has the most pleasing itch… can’t we just get to the killing fields already?  Where’s that armor-plated Range Rover?  Let’s go!

As we continue to plumb the depths of the trophy hunter’s psyche, we are given a glimpse of the cross that this particular hunter has to bear…  And I see that it’s America we are talking about, (but by her appearance we could be talking Australia, Germany, England, The Netherlands,) where animals are killed (slaughtered) 24-7 to keep the grocery meat cases filled…  and this is after these animals are paraded through 4-H clubs and state fairs where they are judged on “beauty…”What we don’t understand, Ms. Hunter, is where you would derive satisfaction over killing for what appears to be killing’s sake, simply to demonstrate you ability to do so?  Not because you need to keep you family fed?  As man spreads his boundaries and encroaches on habitat, we assume that the animals either need to be killed or relocated…  boy… listen to me, a regular eco-activist.

So if your living involves guiding and portering rich folk who feel entitled to kill because they have dominion over animals, you will of course value humans over animals…  especially the rich white ones with guns!

Not much left to tell on this story…

The age-old conflict between the developed and the developing world…  and the need for hard currency.  Whether it’s big game, diamonds, rare earth minerals or anything else that the rich want, they come to Africa to get it… exploitation?  That’s in the eye of the beholder I suppose…  But I wonder what Ms. Hunter’s story is… what draws her to the rifle and not the camera…  I guess we’ll have to see this one play out…

I have been waiting to name this “category” until it was allowed to unfold a bit.  Now is the time… I shall call it, “The Lion Queen.”

And is the lion named “Cecil?”

Should I repeat myself?  You take away the females, and the hunting party is gone!  Males lay about, waiting to get challenged by other males for the right (privilege) to mate with the females, thereby keeping the gene pool strong.  And it wasn’t just males killing cattle and villagers!  There was an intact pride going after the herd in previous days… has the “storytelling” already begun?  How much has Ms. Hunter (Ha!  Get it?  She’s a hunter…) paid to be guided out to where the lions are to take her one shot and be able to brag about the kill!?  How soon before she is vilified in the press about her taking of big game?  People back home are already squeamish about her decor- the elephant feet that serve as end-table bases in her drawing room…

But wait, as usual, something seems a bit off here…  a couple of things, actually…

First off, this kind gentleman, who is waiting for her to arrive, knows her itinerary, doesn’t know her name?  “Hunter… Ms. Lee Hunter!”  And second, when someone asks you how your flight was, how your day is going, how your weekend was, how you are feeling on a Monday morning back in the office, the last thing they want is an honest, protracted answer.  So to deflect the negative energy being thrown out in the third panel, our porter quickly references the car that is “waiting.”  Clever enough.

One could speculate about who this Ms. Hunter is, but I’ll bet dollars to donuts that she and Mark are about to cross paths and it will only be a matter of time that he announces, awkwardly and without solicitation, that he is a happily married man…

Good thing we get to see this published in color every day, otherwise we wouldn’t have the benefit of seeing the pool of blood in panel one… But c’mon, guys… this can’t be your first rodeo, as they say… How do you go running out into the tall grass with nothing more than a torch and your nerve?

It’s probably against the law to kill a lion, even one that is ravaging your “herd,”  so it certainly puts one at a disadvantage…

Perhaps these villagers/ tribesmen could learn a thing or two from The Mundari…

Yes, the cattle… all two of them… are… are…. are….. GONE!

OK, we’ll look over there…  and wait patiently to see what you are seeing, good sir.  The torch bearer, channeling the Statue of Liberty in the first panel, is left in the dust.  There is apparently enough “dusk” remaining to provide a view across the field.

It’s unlikely though that this Pride of Lions could have killed and dragged off the cattle in the time that it took the villagers to make it from their huts to the pasture… But then rules of time-space don’t seem to matter in this latest incarnation of Mark Trail…

…otherwise why get to know these people or their struggles?

I feel for the guy in panel one… it would appear that he has tripped over the sleeping dog (who should, by the way, be up and guarding cattle…) and the three in the second panel look like they are embracing the zombie apocalypse…  Only the guy with the fire stick (call it a torch, I guess) has any business rushing the lion pride…  The guy in the foreground looks like he’s ready to plead and negotiate, the middle guy has that look of “Again?  Really??” on his face.  As was pointed out n the comments, tribes/ villages usually take great pains to circle their precious livestock at night to protect them… perhaps we’ll learn more as we go…

The look on the cow’s face, though, suggests that this is nothing new- something to be expected… In this world, you are either preying or being preyed upon…  is preying even a word?  Oh I don’t know… it’s early.

So as the other lions look onto the scene with rabid delight, only a miracle, or a villager with a gun, can save Bessie now… particularly sad, as this cow would have continued to live symbiotically with man, providing nourishment and security… which makes me wonder why man isn’t in the picture… I mean, either secure the animals at night, or at least stand a watch…

Well, we’ll see how much of this I have right.   Could be just random animal kingdom stuff, with no bearing at all on a building plot line… but we shall see…

I notice lions on the hunt… and a small village in the background.  And last I checked, it’s only the females that do the hunting… It’s the males that sit back waiting to be fed… very domesticated scene- the “herd” of bovine creatures (all two of them) seem out of place.  The herd only has strength if it’s large enough to affect the “edge of the herd” dynamic.

But with only two in the herd, then, well, the effect is lost…

Looks like a spotted cow… from Wisconsin… could be that our next “adventure” will be taking us into the Heart of Darkness where Mark will help villagers figure out how to keep their livestock from becoming prey…