Mark is calling Rusty’s cell phone which is currently being used to Trail (ha!) Juanito and the stolen artifacts…  using the Snap-n-Rap app… or something like that…

I think we refer to this as a plot twist… although it now takes months to get to one in the Trailverse.  One of my favorite twists from the old days was when the old man with the indian artifacts spilled maple syrup on the wicker “pack-baskets” used to hide the (apparently) highly valuable and prized arrowheads and stuff… which led a bear, and Mark Trail to the cache where they were buried… and justice prevailed!

OK, well, here we go.  It’s NOT Dirty Dyer (witness… no eye-patch) It’s some other random baddie…

…and this is not the first time that we have been confused about who we are calling Jefe…  Spanish for Boss… unless it’s being used ironically and with derision in this case… Recall the Cave adventure and the Coyotes (human traffickers…) There was all kinds of confusion over who was in charge there…

I thought for sure that by skipping yesterday and reading both today we’d have some closure here… some reveal.  Nope.

From what I can tell, there are three people in the room?

Maybe more??  Are you asking Jose a question or asking if it’s Jose?  Who knows…

Why reveal a plot twist quickly when you can leave the audience twisting indefinitely?

So, let’s take stock:

In:  Becky, Juanito, Jose, Raul

Question mark:  Professor Carter

Suspicious by Nature (ha!):  Mark Trail

Lost Lambs:  Rusty and Mara

Drum roll, please…

Living in the shadows… who can it be now??

Backpack guy/mule walking through a seedy section- witness the badly boarded up windows…

And who is behind the gated entrance…  could it be… Dirty Dyer?!

The ‘UUNNGGHH’ and the ‘CRASH’

Like the Sturm und das Drang…

And of course, there are the kids!  Mara towering over Rusty… in height and intellect.

And for the record, she’s no señorita… more likely a Señora…

… and for the lámpara.  <<sigh>> I just don’t get this.  Maybe there’s nothing to get.

Time Check:  April 26, 2018.  That’s when the Trails arrived at the airport… Coming up on 8 months of this shite.

A regimen high in glutens and refined sugar is sure to produce those lovely double chins… c’mon people, can’t you tell when you are poisoning yourselves?

It’s like this couple (or the lady at least) is so starved (ha, not likely) for human interaction that they take a desperado, who crashed through their skylight and admits to “chasing someone,” as a sign of sorts… welcoming him into their home and feeding him… “Here, take our ruined dinner and feed yourself, stranger… maybe you are… how you say, Hangry?”

As random overfed lady tries to peel back the layers of generational hurt that has led Raul to her cocina, I can only imagine she will begin to ply him with comestibles in an attempt to show him the love that he is missing…

But the more he talks, the colder the trail gets…

George, you must be getting advance looks at the next day’s strip… Except it looks like he’s handing over U.S. Green… And he’s likely either CIA or a drug runner to have all that on his person.

Huh?  What?  Because you have a thing against doors and staircases?  This is just stupid.

But it doesn’t explain why people are living in the urban center of Santa Poco… But hey, ok, I’ll go with it…  I guess this would constitute a “high-rise” in the outer rim of the Central American region…

…and one thing we have learned is that a “good joke” in James Allen’s Trailverse takes a good week to tell.  So we will still be reveling in this moment tomorrow I am sure…

It’s broad daylight, you ee-dee-ot!  Seriously.

Let’s study the two locals in panel two…  morbidly obese, no sense of style beyond a t-shirt and a top that drapes over their XXXXL and size 32 frames, respectively.  Raul is without a scratch and able to deliver a quick punchline.  Heh, heh… Enjoy your supper, mis amigos!  Sorry about all the plate glass shards… een your en-chee-la-thas…

Or perhaps more accurately, the skylight, and into the food court?

He will survive this.  We can’t lose desperados when the story relies on them being there to menace the children!

But it appears that the fall will not be to the street level, but to the rooftop of another building…  he should be able to survive that fall.

Talking to yourself in the third person?  Then calling out your situation to no one in particular?  Finally, letting go a scream?  I’m telling you, campers, this is riveting stuff.

I will say, however, that George pretty much nailed it with his comment yesterday:

Thankfully we are provided a little summary to open this installment… Otherwise we’d be asking the question, “What are we doing again?”

And what are we looking at in the middle frame?  Boot Bracelets?  Is that a thing?  In a world where Raul could just as easily climb down to the street level, this kind of “action” is reminiscent of a “Die Hard” movie…  Pick your poison- they are all extremely watchable, but clearly John McClane takes a beating every time just for beating’s sake…  to burnish his “hero” status.  This guy, Raul, is just an idiot.

Is the Professor playing dumb here??

Is he knowingly leading his “old friend” into a trap?  We really don’t know who to trust, do we?  We have to follow the money… that’s the only way we would know for sure… He or she who profiteth is he or she who, uhm… I don’t know… Stealeth?

As we move slowly through the conversation, Mark’s eyebrow continues to bely his concern over the strange events that are unfolding…

We let the children go into a strange foreign city with a narcoleptic stranger driving a chopped up conversion/panel truck, what could possibly go wrong??

Sounds more like a kidnapping to me…

As the camera zooms in for effect, we see Mark continuing to question Joe’s bona fides…

…and c’mon Professor!  how well do you really know these people?  Isn’t that your job?  The job of any leader?  Trust given without being earned?  It’s a nasty world out there, and we all have to be on guard to some degree…  but of course we will now spend the next week engaged in a blow by blow discussion between Mark and The Professor…  tick, tock…

Well, that’s a tip-off if ever there was one…

Did he go to evil medical school??

The look on Mark’s face in the second panel is classic!  The raised eyebrow… the clenched jaw…  you can almost see his fists tightening…

I have to say that the artifacts in the bookcase are fairly pedestrian…  especially the one in the top right hand corner- what is that anyway??