That’s got to be a tad bit uncomfortable… those straps digging into bare shoulders?  But what do I know?

This conversation is (once again) riveting.  I can barely contain my excitement.  Or my words.

As the Random Shore Bird (RSB) continues to attempt extraction from the tiny shell, we learn more about “cabana boy…”

Always good to have a forger!  Never know when you will need to assume an alternate identity!  Although I am guessing the technology has advanced some since the Donald Pleasence character in the Great Escape…

Have to admit that I have never witnessed criminals sizing each other up and sharing their bona-fides…

So what you are saying, Smith, is that you are a curator of fine nature magazines?  That in your spare hours between killings, you enjoy reading old tales of defeated poaching and winning environmental causes?

Smuggler and a tracker?  Really Chris?  Your one attempt at smuggling got you killed, and remind me what you have tracked in your life??

Enter the cabana boy… Now we have a regular “A-Team!”

OK, I have to say it…  the first panel above breaks a cardinal rule… nipples!  I mean, really?  Put a shirt on, man!

Hire. a. writer.  Please.

And the only way you can think of getting off the island is to be an accessory to murder?  Makes sense.

Who is the third guy in the frame?  Another Arms dealer/lackey?  He certainly appears to be armed…

“WTF?,” says the stranded Conch…

1.  Why does Dirty have the same hair color as Mara?
2. Why is Dirty such an idiot?

Sure!  Why not?  Create witnesses to your intentions wherever you go!  Maybe he considers this a suicide mission- his last act.  He has no need to hide his intentions… I mean, isn’t ALL THE WORLD out to even a score with MARK TRAIL?   Won’t he be greeted with love an affection in jail, as he meets up with all the bad guys that Mark has put away over the years?

And certainly I underestimate the reach of Woods and Wildlife magazine…  why, its readership extends across the globe, including Protectorates of the United Kingdom…  And the reaction is priceless- going from Easter Island monolith to Huh?!  What??!! at the mere mention of THE TRAIL!

…with a flamethrower??

Or a Rocket Launcher?

I seriously wonder if we will be allowed (now) to follow through on this storyline… or if we will be teased (once again) only to be dragged into another slow motion story featuring Mark and a handful of non-repeating bit players…  focused on some “article” that Mark owes the magazine…

I am sure that Mark remains oblivious to this threat, having moved on, thinking (as we all did) that Dirty Dyer died.  Oh won’t Mark be surprised when he sees what will surely look like a ghost to him…

I mean, what are the chances, really? Two Mr. Smiths?  And, judging a book by its cover, one of them looks a lot less likely to have that name…

And where are you going, oh Dirty One?  To exact revenge?  A rocket launcher or a flame thrower would both lay Lost Forest to ashes and ruin…  assuming that is the plan.  Boy, this is getting dark…

I had a feeling we’d run into Chris “Dirty” Dyer.  For those of you who are new or don’t recall, Mr. Dyer has been a recurring character, first introduced in the Rhino-horn-poaching caper…  where he supposedly met his demise, only to be resurrected in a brief encounter in an airport…

Now we find him in the Bahamas, on the lam, so to speak, under the alias “Mr. Smith” testing weapons on wax figures!  My, what fun!

About 10 months ago, in real time, to be exact…

But in Trail time, not that long ago…  Harbour Island, where we saw Dirty Dyer being served a “Gun Club Punch.”  On the house.  I guess crime does pay.

Are you suggesting that you might be in line for an award of some kind?  Seriously?

I will not even dignify that with a response…

It’s not all about the art!  To be in charge of a daily serial strip, one has to be able to spin a yarn!  Keep readers interested!  With plot and character development!  Something we haven’t known for years now!!

I swear, we better land this plane soon…  I am going mad!

Oh thank you, thank you for letting us in on the lives of the Trails.  Such riveting discourse!  Rusty is either being terribly polite or has no idea what’s “cool” and what’s not…

Diversity?  Is that the knock on the comics?  I am thinking that the two issues today are the fact that we are still reading old ‘Peanuts’ and ‘Doonesbury’ dailies because there aren’t (apparently?) any better options…  and that the miniaturization of the format leaves those still interested in the funny pages getting out the magnifying glass, or glad that they get the electronic version delivered so as to blow it up to 150% on a high-def computer screen…

OK, so I am assuming that the dialogue in the first panel is between Rusty and Cherry… unless of course Cherry is already passed out from a double Bombay Martini…

But assuming it is between mother and son, Mark’s bursting in with his comment in the second panel is so, well, Mark…  I mean, does it ALWAYS have to be about YOU?  Jeez…

Poor Rusty… back to Lost Forest and zero chance of making the acquaintance of anyone nearly as exotic as Mara!  I mean, the gray hair!  The (ahem) mature form!  She really was quite the siren…  Hard to peg her age… girls grow up faster than boys, you know?  Anyway, back home we go.  Hopefully never to see another Toucan.

What I really fear is what comes next and the fact that it will drag through summer and well into fall…  At least by now our expectations should be well set.  So settle in, folks.  Maybe Mark will get to go someplace alone this time, be tempted by a siren of his own, proclaim his happily married status, and punch a couple of poachers… we can only hope.

Oh my that’s right…  At this point we have to be reminded of what brought them to the jungle in the first place!  Professor Carter’s use of LIDAR to uncover ruins that lay under the jungle canopy…

But really, Mark, you are going to write an article on something already very well documented, and something you could have researched on the internet without even leaving Lost Forest??  Wouldn’t an article about trafficking in humans and antiquities be a lot more interesting?  And good lord man… is that the same pink shirt you’ve been wearing all this time?  Do you have 6 of them or do you never change?

So apparently Rusty got his phone back… and I am sure that he was hoping for more than a picture of a Toucan… seriously.

Max.

I guess I will never get used to how time doesn’t seem to matter to this strip.  If the standard vaca is a week, then we just blew past 4 or 5 days of real time for them the be “heading home tomorrow.”

As we wrap up this little story line that started over half a year ago…

Mark is seen denying the fact that, while confused,  Rusty does have feelings for Mara…

…and of course he goes for the familiar to change the subject… Nature!

…With a quick cut to the youngsters… and Rusty’s clumsy attempts to express emotions.  Not bad, considering he has zero behaviors to model from his home life… And besides, what’s that red thing on the side of Rusty’s head?  Did something in the water gnaw his ear off??

Poor Rusty.  Locked in this prepubescent state… never able to escape!  That Mark and Cherry get to be forever in their early-to-mid-thirties,  which if I had an age where I was to be “stuck,” that wouldn’t be half bad…  They clearly have the better end of this deal.

As Mark looks wistfully into the Central American sky, he now ponders that which had not even crossed his mind…

So go on, Cherry, you rock that zebra-print bikini… and keep on wondering about whether Mark has ever had “the talk” with his son… and quite frankly whether either of you actually need to…

Careful, you are taking a terrible chance with your alabaster skin tone, Mark and Cherry.  I hope you have loaded up on you SPF-max!

And Cherry, isn’t it your turn to keep track of the boy?  I mean, Mark is all tuckered out from punching bad guys and exacting revenge!

Even from the side, her hooded, sleepy countenance and delusional thinking suggests that she’s had a few!  Ever since that pool scene in Hawaii I’ve had my suspicions!  Or maybe I am just imagining an Umbrella Drink…

Again with the vacation references!  Seriously!  If you don’t work, then what constitutes vacation?  Sleeping somewhere other than home?

Well, good luck Rusty on that Snorkeling thing…  I predict a riptide in your future!