So leave, already, you big galut!  You have no responsibility for Baldy’s safety, do you?

And what the hell is Sheriff Stober doing off camera?  Guiding the plane in?  He probably has those magic flashlights that guide the plane into the gate, and waving them around!  A two-fer, he must be thinking- I will get the pilot and the robber too… not to mention the girl… who recently melted under the pressure and listened to reason…

Sorry Campers… Needed a few days away from the woods to sharpen my axe a little…

With a thud, the revolver falls to the ground.. and doesn’t go off!  I’m pretty sure that Mythbusters covered this topic years ago… dropped guns do NOT fire on their own…

Meanwhile Meteorologist Mark (he so bad!) is giving the local forecast…  with “Backup” from Sheriff Stober… Man, this is really inane…

..with Mr. Bad-guy-pony-tail-dyed-to-match-upholstery asking the question we have all been positing for months now…  there had to be an easier way to do this… like how about we all get on the plane at the airport and take off together, rather than adding kidnapping and false imprisonment to the rap sheet…

She is a chameleon… and has shown her many sides throughout this story line…

Right now she is playing the sympathy card and you are falling for it!  Keep those guns out and hammers cocked…  OK, that last sentence could be misconstrued, but whatever…

The Wildcard in all of this (for now at least) is Johnny “with the six-shooters” Lone Elk…  he’s been off camera for a while now, ever since going after Blondie…

Yea, shut up Trail, you are an annoyance, at best.  Learn some moves, man.  You’ve been a puppet for most of this engagement, with the exception of one spark of the Ol’ Mark… As the rain begins to fall again, we are left not with dialogue, but competing monologues- no one is interested in hearing what the other has to say.  Hmmm…  wait a minute, did I just land on something?  Did I not just sum up the state of the political world, with everyone talking past each other, trying to be heard above everyone and everything else that makes up the din?

Seems a bit improbable unless of course he had another life before “breaking bad” and hooking up with Baldy…  “Seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess…” he thought.

I read somewhere that the coloring in of the dailies is done by off-shore artists…  which might explain why Bad-Guy-Flying-Plane’s pony tail matches the upholstery of the cockpit…

The more I look at panel one, the more it reminds me of a scene from Johnny Quest.  Remember how Race Bannon, Dr. Quest, Johnny and Haji (not to forget about Bandit…) would jet around, seemingly able to land where no plane had gone before?

Not being an airplane aficionado, I attempted to determine the make and model of what is being piloted… and discovered that there are literally hundreds of manufacturers…  Wiki of course lists them all, and here is part of the listing, alphabetically of just B-Be…  If anyone can ID the plane, more power to you…

The Sheriff, that is… There are times this strip doesn’t move and then there are times that it jump-cuts to another dimension…  such as today’s installment where there would seem to be no concerns over Sheriff Stober and his long-barreled peacemaker…

This has to be the first time we ever saw Ol’ Baldy smile, too…  Fast forward to tomorrow’s (or next week’s) installment and we will see a rogue funnel cloud drop out of nowhere and take out the small plane… Whereupon Blondie races into Mark’s arms which gives him the opportunity to declare his happily married state… then onto the Ferret Fields?  One can only hope…

Oh, and on the topic of going nowhere fast, check out Judge Parker today…

Can’t hardly wait ’til tomorrow!!

…than being called, “Cop…”  “That’s Sheriff to you, Mr. Clean…  I don’t stand for re-election every 4 years to be called Cop, thank you very much…”

So with Mark held Hostage (Hey, that’s Rusty’s job!!) we are again left to ponder for a day or two how this will resolve… Hey, I know, Mark, why don’t you wheel around and take out Baldy at the knees?  Do you really think he’s going to shoot?  I don’t.  And what about you, Johnny?  You are chasing Blondie who has voluntarily taken herself out of the picture for now, posing no threat.  She can be mopped up later… You’d do better to get the drop on Baldy as his attention is now fully on Sheriff Stober.  But hey, what do I know??

Which might account for Johnny’s actions and dialogue in the third panel.  As Blondie considers her options, she is surrounded by a miasma of despair and regret that blocks out all the natural and man-made surroundings…

For students of the Trailverse, let’s also consider how the universe has been reshaped… If the third panel was placed on a placard, without dialogue, presented and the question was posed, “good guy or bad guy?”  the obvious answer would be “bad.”  Look at the markers- long hair, unshaven face, brandishing weapons in an aggressive way… Even Sheriff Stober’s sideburns would have no place on the shiny side of the old coin…  I guess we live in a much different world now, don’t we??

“Cover me!” Johnny says…  in directive fashion that may have the sheriff complying with his wish… or not… which means Johnny’s life as a “save-the-dayer” might be short lived… But boy he looks super cool brandishing  those six shooters that Sheriff Stober’s Grandfather used to use for evil purposes…  in a way faintly reminiscent of Butch and Sundance…  and don’t forget… Sheriff Stober carries a tomahawk!

…that Sheriff…

Calm and crouching, he puts a bullet right where he wants to- just above head level and into the building.  No sense in actually shooting anyone, right?   Just need to let them know who has the superior steel…

And now it’s Baldy telling people to stay clear of harm’s way?  Since when did he acquire an ounce of empathy?  Of course as Mark, invincible as ever, makes himself available for stray bullets, it’s Blondie that realizes that life is nothing but a series of choices… some good, some not so good, that land us where we happen to be at any given time.  And right now she’s wishing she’d finished Pre-Algebra in the 9th grade and didn’t leave school to wander west…

I think Blondie wasted a round when Mark was getting his punch on…

And Baldy has now fired off 3 more in what appears to be a six-shooter…  Assuming that Blondie’s gun is fully loaded, that leaves 6-4+6=8 rounds left before reloading…

So now that we are all aware of of everyone else, what prevents a Mexican Standoff?  Am I still allowed to say that?  What does it even mean??

Thank you, Google… and yes, completely on point.  I predict that the FBI will swoop in with Helicopter (maybe Cal from the Island “Adventure…”) and save the day.  Wouldn’t be the first time that the Feds have made an appearance in these “stories…”

OK!  We are finally coming to the climax!    Not that we’ll ever get to see a prairie dog or a black-footed ferret!

As if…

Looks like in panel one Sheriff Stober has mastered the art of ventriloquism…  The words come out, but the lips aren’t moving!  But in panel two the right-eye-dominant lawman has a bead on Ol’ Baldy and Blondie! I feel the end coming!  It can’t be more than a couple of weeks now, kids!!

What the – !?

And had we noticed before that Blondie is also a leftie?  A southpaw?  Depending on the source, and who knows whether a study has ever actually been done, estimates indicate a range from 10-15% of the general population that is left-handed.  Seems like my life is full of lefties, though… my wife, mom, grandpa, two cousins, two of the four people who report to me at work, not to mention my boss… and it seems that my rate of discovery is only increasing… I was in a meeting the other day with 8 people in the room and 5 were taking notes with their left hands!!  I am hopelessly right handed, for the record.

So with the tried and true “I’ve got a bad feeling about this!” Mark is now being marched at double-gunpoint to some airstrip that by pure circumstance happens to be near the ghost town…  with Sheriff and Johnny skulking about in the shadows…

I saw yesterday’s strip and had to move on…

I mean really?  I’m no Calvinist, but I really don’t need to see a full frame close-up of Sheriff Stober’s swimsuit area…  and vague references to his “pistols.”

So now that Johnny is all gunned up and ready for a shootout, Sheriff is hoping that they just roll up like a pill bug and surrender…  Not likely, though, as Baldie is itching for a fight, and it appears that he’s not going to let anyone get between him and his money…   or the money that he claims to be his…  I mean how much are we talking, really?  Assuming he has to split it among his accomplices, even if there is now one less,  there probably isn’t enough to last him past a good bender or two, at which point he’s back on the robber circuit doing this all over again…

To the comments that pop up periodically questioning the “logic,” or lack thereof, concerning the hopelessly meandering and non-sequitur quality of the plot line, I hear you.  I guess I’ve been beaten into submission and accepted that they won’t tie up, or off… unless they do in a subsequent story arc, the way that Dr. Joyce first appeared in the Mississippi Ken and Barbie adventure only to have her show up in the Badlands…  And remember, that this going-on-a-year long slog has only covered roughly two days in real time, so when you look at it that way, there is always going to be “plenty of time” to bring seemingly meaningless plot points together…

Mark’s power of suggestion is getting to at least one of them…

Almost like Jedi Mind Tricks…  He lures people in with the power of suggestion… suggesting that he knows more than they do…  Again, this is a ‘new’ Mark… I prefer the old one that led with his fists.

Goodness, Mark, you are such a bore…  an absolute Buzz Killington…

So where’s your NOAA Weather Radio?  Pretty sure you don’t leave home without it… or at least the App…  Why don’t you help Baldie download it onto his phone, that way he’d have up-to-the-minute information about weather conditions in the local area!  And his safety would be assured!  Because if there’s one thing we have to do, it’s make sure that no one gets hurt!!  Poor Baldie… he never figured on what would happen once he stepped into the Trailverse… Once you check in, it’s awfully difficult to check out…  I know from personal experience.

I wonder if North American/King Features Syndicate knows that Mark is still shilling for NOAA??

Be right all the time?  Know more than everyone else? Care about bank robbers and kidnappers? OK, that last one is new.  In the olden days Mark would have punched his way out of there, leaving a Trail (ha!) of teeth and spittle…

But what is he talking about?  The mere arrival of clear skies does not mean the coast is clear?  That there is smooth sailing? That the small craft warning has been lifted?  OK, too many nautical references in the middle of the prairie…  but I guess that’s what he’s getting at…

… yup, time to WRAP THIS UP…

By now I am sure that Johnny is sick and tired of being nothing but a setup man for Sheriff Strober’s (Stober’s?) one-liners…  “I’m a bit slow and can’t see things the way you do, Sheriff…”  “That’s OK, Johnny, that’s why you are here… to make me look good.”

Who else would it be, Johnny?  Hmmm?

So the sun does shine in South Dakota.  Well, you’d never know it by the last few months, which felt more like a monsoon season…

But… uh… yea.  Sure.  I bet your cell/data plan is all that… able raise a signal in the middle of the Black Hills…  But then maybe he has Verizon… They always claim to cover the boondocks…  It’s that 1 or 2 percent better than the other plans…  Looks like Baldy is snapping a selfie in panel three…

Not sure what we are looking at or listening to this morning, but it appears that Johnny had to burst through a secure hatch…

…only to emerge in a crouch reminiscent of Brandon Lee in The Crow.

Good think Mark and Company are in the Saloon, otherwise the story might have moved along a little too quickly…

Here we go, kids, hopefully to something more moderately interesting…

Needing a Tetanus Shot?  C’mon Johnny… you should have one every ten years…  Just like Mark was admonished by Doc before we ever got going on this “adventure…”  Yea… that was 7 months ago…  good lord…

Oh the ink and time that is wasted on idle and meaningless prattle…

…but when the medium is largely digital, there is no cost, other than time… which as I pointed out yesterday is exceedingly precious, especially in light of recent events…  We never know when our number is up, when fate or evil will strike…

I went to a Celebration Mass last week for a co-worker’s father…  65 years old.  Heart attack while hiking, for god’s sake… While it was largely a traditional Mass, the service closed with a quote from Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5, wherein Billy Pilgrim becomes “unstuck in time” and travels to the planet Tralfamadore and learns that time is meaningless.  He learns that everything that has happened , is happening or will happen is actually all there in real time…  that “death” as we know it, doesn’t carry the weight we think it does.  Tell that to the people who were just mowed down…  and those left behind to deal with it.