Took a day off but am back at it… and this is making even less sense that it ever has…

Yup, let’s recount…  Sheriff What’s His Name shows up and demands strong horses (plural) and rides off… Chides Johnny about the “pony” he is riding… sends his pony back to the ranch alone (magic homing horses??)  And now informs him that they are going to enter the cave on foot, sending their remaining mounts back tot he ranch, alone…

And now they enter the cave on foot and with flashlight (thank goodness we aren’t being asked to believe in some form of naturally occurring bioluminescence…)  And Sheriff warns Johnny about the “pits” that abound in the grizzly cave…  Johnny I ask you again, why aren’t you asking for the broader plan, why are you being a sheep?  Why the long face in the second panel?

You all may find this mildly ironic… I am actually on a family vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota!  Passed through Wall and Rapid City yesterday and am staying in a nice rental on top of a mountain!  Did a little fishing this morning… more excursions planned for the coming week.  Funny, though, no signs of Mark, Baldy, Sheriff, Johnny or anyone!

But what’s this?  No one wants to go Spelunking without a harness?  We have done the cave thing before, haven’t we, faithful followers of this meandering an ill-conceived (although reasonably well drawn) serial?

Note- I posted the first two installments above yesterday, but not in a place where you all could see it… good gravy- I’ve only been doing this sine January of 2013…

I will probably wait ’til the weekend to post again- internet in the Black Hills is dodgy!

…and perhaps look for inconsistencies in the artwork.

Johnny is now supposedly on the other draft horse, not his “frightened little pony,” but the colors are all wrong.  The horse that Sheriff what’s-his-name was dragging behind him was not white or gray, but more chestnut…  and Johnny’s “pony” was definitely white/gray…

Johnny, why are you following this guy?  Aren’t your senses tingling at this point?  You are a private citizen taking direction from a known abuser of power…  who will probably be looking for a Presidential pardon at some point in his career…  Law Man of the Year?  Who ever heard of such a thing??

This Sheriff dude is proving to be quite the know-it-all…

What gear?  They lit off without so much as a poncho!!  And Sheriff, could you be any more condescending?  Your Little Pony?  Please… technically “pony” is reserved for any equine less than 14.2 hands high… and other considerations…  but judging from the proportions in the last panel and in previous days, Johnny’s mount ain’t no pony…  either that, or Johnny has suddenly shrunk to child-size.  So, calm, heavy horses it is.  Like Boxer in George Orwell’s Animal Farm… Unquestioning, unwavering, faithful to the end in whatever power structure is in place and whatever task is put before him.

You’ve been found out sheriff!  Johnny is calling you on your story.  Along with your faithful readers who pointed out that Griz simply don’t live in the Black Hills…

So, um, yea, see…  he doesn’t come out unless he’s hungry… sticks to the caves…  he’s over 100 years old, Ol’ Sampson is…  What a crock!!  So even if you have to “deal with that bear,” his eyes will be cloudy with cataracts and he won’t have any teeth left…

Talk about your copy/paste functions…

the center panel today is identical to the the one from yesterday…  Sort of like a slylock fox comic on Sunday… they always have a “what’s different” exercise for the kids…

Grizzly, huh?  Name of Samson, huh?  Oh the tension builds… “Yea, let’s just go ahead ride on into that Ol’ Grizzly cave and see what trouble we can stir up…  in our stirrups… Ha!  Get it?  That’s a joke, son!  Nice boy but he’s about a sharp as a bag of wet mice…”

…and random earthquakes?  Let’s hope not.  We’ve been there too many times…  will the caves be magically lit up?  Big enough for men on horseback?  That sounds like some cave system…

Attempt at humor… irony, anyway.  “See that ridgeline up there?”  “Uh, no… I mean No, Sir!”  And what’s with Sheriff Stober’s collar in the second panel? I just noticed that he looks like a damn Pilgrim…  right out of Plimouth Plantation.  Ever been to see Plymouth Rock, the one emblazoned with “1620” on it?  It’s not much to see…

And so it appears that Johnny’s tumble over the edge was planned!  At least that’s their story and they are sticking with it!

What do you mean not catch them??  Catch up to them?  Catching them is the whole reason for being out in this miserable driving rain…

Speaking of rain and such, I have family that road tripped to St. Louis to achieve “Totality” today… let’s check in on the weather there…

Oh dear… might get sunked… 😦

Reminds me of the classic Peanuts strip where Linus spent days instructing us all on how to safely experience the eclipse using a pinhole device fashioned from a couple of pieces of shirt cardboard…

Things didn’t go so well for him either…

As we clop along here, the story unfolding at breakneck speed, the Sheriff takes notice of a figure on a horse…

Yea, so much for you, Johnny… we have a bona fide celebrity in our midst…  How would it look if he died on my watch??

I have become so conditioned to story lines crawling along slowly I have to admit that I am fairly shocked that we have come upon Sheriff Strober (Stober??) the very next day…

What’s funny is that Johnny doesn’t seem to recognize him!  As if “Going to get the Sheriff” from yesterday was some abstract concept as opposed to actually knowing who the Sheriff is…  And is the Sheriff going to know who Johnny is?  With his stubble and long hair, he might just shoot first and ask questions later, as they say…

Oh, and the constant mention of an impending tornado has transitioned from foreshadowing to annoying.  Just saying…

And here I am expecting Johnny Lone Elk to engage with the bad guy and gal, both of whom Mark is leading into the Ghost Town…

Instead he’s “doubling back” (code words for “getting the hell out of there”) and getting the Sheriff…  Oh, OK, I suppose…  He’s not Mark, doesn’t have the vigilante in his blood, has no weapons, and well, didn’t bargain for any of this…

And unless the Sheriff went in entirely the wrong direction, or there a multiple ways to get to the “ghost town,” they should cross paths anyway.