Blackmail.  Johnny’s threatening to “expose” the Senator…  So Johnny has pictures of the Senator with what? Farm animals?  Senate Pages?  What’s on his Twitter Account??

And what an awful, sinister look Johnny has in panel three!  “WILL YOU SENATOR?” he says in a menacing way…  At least we know now how Anne Marie is going to “find out.”  Trail to the Rescue! With a cell phone! And a breach of privacy!  Can citizens “spy” on each other? Is it just the authorities that need a warrant?

And as Mr Lynx looks on, he wonders whether his habitat is going to be spoiled…  or more like whether that old geezer is going to bring down an elk to be field dressed on the spot, leaving him supper for days!!

Frightened Elk, damaging Fence line, that’s what… so Mark, what are you going to do now?  Frighten one even more?  Seriously.  “You and Johnny stay here and I will send the poor beast right into your shooting range…  Just keep your sight on the Elk, I wouldn’t want to be the one taking a bullet, here.”  Again, I don’t hunt, but is this typical behavior?

Mark I am so proud of you!  You are keeping your thoughts to yourself rather than verbalizing, and you are about to use your fancy phone-device to help you solve a mystery!! Not to mention using your Trail-brain in a truly cognitive manner, thinking ahead, forming and executing a plan.  Very impressive indeed.  Now just don’t get your mount shot out from under you!

Meanwhile, with Mark Trail out of ear-shot, the Senator shares his deepest thoughts with Johnny Walker… “Gee, I feel a little tingle in my leg, Johnny.  Haven’t felt that is a long time… not since the Goldwater election…”  Easy there, Hudson, don’t want you to soil your depends…  Look at him quivering with anticipation while Johnny holds a rifle that look twice as big as it should…

Johnny, Senator and his daughter (not to mention Mark Trail) are all onto you, and see through you like a sheet of isinglass…  I am still puzzled by the whole “putting them together” thing… as opposed to what?  Sending one east and the other west so they can all shoot at each other??

Oh and don’t mind Mr. Wolf, for Heaven’s sake…  he’s just roaming about waiting for a rabbit to happen by or something.  Not like the horses wouldn’t spook at the sight of it, right?

Would that be two elk?  Sort of like deer?  And what? Are they tied off to posts driven into the ground?

Oh Johnny, so grumpy.  What is your problem, really?

I am not a hunter, but isn’t two a bit much?  I mean, these are twelve-hundred-pound animals.  A trophy for each?  Even for Johnny Walker, mounted as a constant reminder of what would no longer be there to kill should the plans to develop the area go through??  I am so confused.

And how many guides and how many hunting parties are there?  “I am putting you and Johnny Walker together…”  “Uh, OK… are there other options?”

Yes, Heaven forbid we should cause these majestic creatures any suffering.  “Aim for the heart, Gentlemen.  Johnny, that’s the part of the anatomy you apparently do not have…”

…and Dusty still hasn’t caught up with current events… assuming these are federal lands, otherwise why would a United States Senator be on the scene, you should be erecting barricades and locking out the public just to increase the theater and the political impact of the Gub-Mint Shut-Down…

And by the way, have you ever thought about JUST ASKING THEM?  I mean really.  But as the Trailverse is replete with non-verbal, non-confrontational and passive aggression, that is until Mark starts punching and kicking bad guys, why don’t we take a long and circuitous route to the truth??

And remember Mark, the Senior Senator is but ONE VOTE…  any mention of his committee appointments, level of influence, confirming that his vote is the key to an otherwise deadlocked legislature?  These are plot points that might add a little tension, a little context.  Just sayin’.

A private thought being hatched and shared out of the Trail-head…  And such a concerned look.  Or is it just gas?

A threat?  Huh.  Not so much, Mark.  “Don’t get any crazy ideas… Know what I mean, Jelly Bean?”  Ooh, I am shaking in my boots… Maybe it’s the body posture that Mark is picking up on…  bent forward, sort of aggressive… I don’t know.  The Senator’s “old guy” features are becoming more pronounced here in the great outdoors, though… Head pitched back in panel one as if to say, “Huh?  What??”

And in panel three, Johnny has the stink-eye pointed at his meal ticket…  Jeez, what a control freak.

Nice that all the men are in uniform:  White collared shirt, buttoned up all the way to the top, with requisite L.L. Bean “Original Field Coat” Jacket… a steal at under $200…  it’ll wear like iron!  I know, I still have mine after 20+ years…

That cat must have real patience… I mean, it’s been lying in wait for a meal for days now, only to have its quarry slip away!

Oh, Dusty!  It’s been a while!  Dusty Rhodes, former WWE Wrestler and commentator, is now on the government payroll?  What an ignominious end!  Of course Ol’ Dusty is an Ol’ Friend of Trail’s… and part of the Aryan Brotherhood that makes up the Forest Service… Seriously.  Is there a spec of diversity in the Trailverse?  Nope.  Unapologetically so, it would seem…

And the air at your Lake Home is as fetid as the air at our Nation’s Capital?  Huh.  Anyway, it’s good that the Senator has his priorities straight- avoiding the vote on a continuing resolution to keep the Government “open for business.”  Strange that the Ranger still showed, given that all non-essential staff is now furloughed indefinitely…

With Apologies to Mazda, and with Mark using the back half of his commercial round-trip ticket, we find the political elite taking wing in the wild blue, off to the land of Lost Forest, the “Sanctuary,” the “Nature Preserve, the “Game Preserve,” to appreciate what happens when man starts to drill holes into Mother Earth… Dead Cows?  Or Frightened Elk?

But really… who owns this plane?  Who is piloting the Plane?  Wes?  BIG OIL?  The Senator?  Part of the congressional fleet on standby for junkets and fact-finding missions?  Meanwhile, Johnny continues to display his pissy attitude toward to whole thing.  Johnny, Honey, why don’t you shut your pie-hole and try to chill out for once in your life.  You can’t control everything, you know…”

I bet Johnny Walker was a bully in grade school, or maybe, better yet, he was the one who was bullied…  that might explain his confrontational nature and his propensity to engage in name-calling… And don’t YOU understand, Johnny, that Anne Marie is (1) on to you (2) doesn’t love you anymore and (3) is hot for THE TRAIL??   Oh, poor girl…  soon to be another in the pantheon of broken hearts left behind by our intrepid outdoorsman…

And how, pray tell, do you plan to “put a stop” to Mark Trail?  This I can’t wait to see!

And, oh, by the way, we have seen that ¾ close-up of Ann Marie before… why not pull out all the stops with the copy/ paste functionality?

I mean, simple sequencing, right?  Anne Marie bids Johnny welcome and invites him to enter the Senator’s Chambers, and already he not only knows about the plans for a hunting trip, but has had time to form his typically negative opinion?  I don’t get it.

And what exactly is the Lynx/ Ocelot doing in panel one?  Coiled up and ready to pounce?  Praying in the general direction of Mecca?  Sleeping?  Odd… Not to mention the lake, which is now a lovely color of I-don’t-know-what… not sure what color that would be from the 64 box of Crayola crayons Raw Sienna or just plain ol’ Tan?…  all I know is that’s one distressed body of water…

All I know is that Johnny is getting more angry by the day as he feels the encroachment of Mark Trail, as well he should, since faithful readers all know how this is going to turn out…

Not to be overly critical, but Anne Marie, in Panel two, could be an entirely different person…  The hair is the same (described by one as a ‘hot mess…’) but her face has completely changed, only to return to more familiar aspect in panel three.  So the plan is to get the Senator out into the Wilderness- what his lake home doesn’t qualify for that?  What if they were going to set up a drilling rig on the shores of whatever lake he calls his own?  Classic Liberal NIMBY behavior- oh, sure, wind farms are a great idea, just don’t put one off the coast of Hyannis Port…

Ever the practical one, Mark continues to sport the olive/ taupe suit that he wore to dinner the previous night, but changes out the shirt and tie in order that he doesn’t look that obvious about it…  Nice spread collar and silk rep tie.  I will give hive this much, his sartorial sense is refined and classic.  Probably shops at JoS. A. Bank…  And such a gentleman, pulling out the chair for Anne Marie!  He is at home anywhere he goes!  The most interesting man alive?  Probably not, but he will do in a pinch…

I have to draw attention to the matronly waitress in panel two, wearing the Hazel (Baxter Family) maid uniform and toting the globe shaped coffee urn- the same kind that cherry uses at Lost Forest!

“But Mark, (my how familiar we are) my Dad has changed.  He is normally down with the tree hugging set, but ever since I began having relations with Johnny, he has started to agree with everything he says… and I am starting to regret having let Johnny into, umm err, my life…”

But once again, Mark’s knowledge of the legislative process is a bit off… A single Senator cannot “pass a bill” (maybe a kidney stone, but not a whole bill…) without other members of congress going along and the President signing it into law… Unless of course we want to go down the Executive Order path, which would require Mark to get inside the head of the sitting president… might we go there?  Who knows?

And there’s that earring… pasted to of Ann Marie’s upper mandible…  Poor girl…

I swear, Elrod & Company needs to take a crash course in modern day telecommunications equipment, how to draw it and how to hold and use it…

Anyway, here’s the Trail in his natural habitat…  alone in a hotel room verbalizing his every thought for the benefit of you and me.  But soft! What brings the ring?  Why it’s Ann Marie Mason, Johnny Walker’s Sweetheart, calling Mark Trail.  Well this is highly irregular, what with all the gender role clarity at play…  So Anne Marie, raised by wolves (remember??) is going to venture into the steaming vat of our Nation’s Capital in search of the one man who cannot be bought, cannot be swayed, cannot be driven off course…  Mark Trail.  But why? Is she going to give up the goods on Johnny?  Is Johnny turning out to be a BAD BOYFRIEND?  Is he just using her to get to her father Senator Mason, Hudson? Oh the Cad!!

… And I am not even going to comment on what it appears mark is getting ready to do with his left hand in panel three…

Before we get back to our story, look at the way that Mark is holding his phone in panels one and two…  kind of ham-handed, don’t you think??  In fact, it’s a wonder he can here is “Ol’ Buddy” Bill, considering he is completely covering the speaker hole!  Looks more like he’s handling a Walkie-Talkie than a phone…

And does Mark’s Ol’ Buddy Bill have special powers?  How does he know that Mark is in DC?  Caller ID perhaps?

And heavens!  Look at the pillow in panel three…  it’s growing!  Seriously!

But oh, that Johnny Walker…  It would seem that he and the Senator didn’t get the memo.  One cannot be a “right hand man” and a lobbyist at once, can one?  Unless I over-interpreted the title of “right hand man” as being on the Senator’s paid staff…  there are laws against that, supposedly!  And don’t lobbyists have to register?  Yup, I think they probably do.  So simply “hearing about” someone being a lobbyist would suggest that they can run around wearing more than one hat, slipping in and out of the shadows of the Senate chamber… ick.

I knew I knew him!!  All he was missing was the top hat and tails!!  OK they spell it with an ‘ie,’ but no matter.  Probably didn’t want to incur the wrath of copyright lawyers.  This is too funny!!

“Yup, Just Business, Honey, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it…”  What a tool… even in the time warped Trail-verse, this notion is simply unpalatable.  And let me apply my mind control techniques on your doddering father- these aren’t the droids you are looking for…  “That was ridiculous garbage being spewed by Trail…”

But the best line in a month of Sundays came from Mark Himself:  “Johnny REALLY came on STRONG!  I WONDER WHY???”  And he means that.  Oh Clueless, Thy name is Trail…  What’s it like to live in your world?!?

And clearly, the fact that the vehicle Mark is Driving has headrests and a shoulder belt suggests that he had to get on a plane and rent a car since no vehicle in the current Lost Forest fleet is new enough to sport these safety features…

Seriously?  Silver Service? White Linen?  Lake home?  I guess I just don’t appreciate how the political elite rolls…  Despite being massively under-dressed, the Senator maintains his composure and his good cheer, despite the fact that Johnny the pit bull is straining at his leash…  wanting to take down Mark with a single blow, all while “protecting” the Senator from undue influence and impositions onto his busy calendar…  More than anything, Johnny is protecting his “meal-ticket” and can’t (literally) afford to let the Senator go off-message or stray too far from the feeding trough.

And as usual, there is absolute role clarity in the Trailverse.  Women prepare food.  Men eat food and discuss weighty matters…  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Those are fightin’ words, Mr. Brylcreem!  I guess Johnny IS cross…Of course Johnny has a personal interest in seeing the Senator re-elected…  that’s how this works, Marky-Mark… Lower suckers and sycophants attach themselves to higher order Parasites and keep the whole thing propped up by buying and selling influence.  It’s call government.  And it’s coming to a town near you!

Now won’t dinner be fun!  Do you think Mark will stick around, now that he has been properly called out as one not “on the Senator’s Team” or will the base layer of the needs hierarchy prevail as Mark’s stomach growls and calls for food followed by black coffee?

And what hell is that in the tree in panel two?  A little early for Breast Cancer Awareness Month?  Or maybe not…

Dinner is going to be tense.  Not that Mark will “feel” any of the emotion, blind as he is to other’s feelings…  Oh to live simply, to be unaware of what others are thinking and feeling, must make for a much simpler life, you know?  Not that I would trade, mind you, but Mark’s ability to walk into situations with such linearity of thought and narrowness of view requires much less cognitive energy…

And such foreboding in panel one, taken up mostly by the black bird of doom.  It’s not a very good Raven, if that’s what it is supposed to be, but we will take the Chinese colorist’s interpretation of the moment and paint the episode black…

And Mark, Really?  “Best for the country?”  Your stance is annoying, one that could only be taken by one that has had his life fall into place without a lot of effort and hasn’t had to worry a whole lot about what puts the roof over your head or the horse under your saddle…  Little people need to be aware of what fuels their enterprise, literally, while you maintain fanciful notions of life as grand while we deal with thorny issues like achieving energy independence…

Well I don’t.  “I am going to help Ann Marie in the kitchen” is code for… what?  I need to leave the room?  I can’t stand being around you? I need to leave you and Johnny alone so he can rough you up a bit?

But of course the dinner invitation is accepted at the first mention.  Mark is accustomed to being fed wherever he goes.  Other than the odd shore-lunch of freshly caught trout over an open flame, this man knows nothing of preparing food…  “I wonder if they serve coffee in this joint,” he must be thinking…

And there’s Johnny, looking all chisel faced, hewn from the granite that no doubt makes up the sub-strata of the lake bed where all of the Senator’s political enemies lay sleeping… with the fishes.

Oh, Mark, you are surrounded!!  Let’s see, when was the last time you engaged with the political elite?  1958?  Things HAVE changed a bit since then, Old Friend.  It’s a different world, where money DOES talk, and Bullshit walks…  Your writing and thinking have now been called out TWICE for being a “bit idealistic…” not rooted in the reality of the modern day.  You see, we all have i-Phones or Galaxies…  With all the talk of GREEN and FOOTPRINTS of CARBON, most of us really couldn’t give a real damn, since we are mostly concerned with have the power to light up all of our various devices…

And what would those “Matters” be, Senator?  One can only imagine… With a brand like “Hudson Mason,” how much campaigning really has to go on?  And clearly the interests have made their way into his old, leathery hide, and with that awesome ‘stache and genial smile, how could you not trust this guy?

Wearing your hair a little long, though, aren’t you Johnny?  That’s a mighty big tip-off in the Trailverse for a person who is less than forthright and stout of heart…

Remember we are at a LAKE HOME??  Maybe I just get the wrong impression, but it looks like Johnny is ready to apply for a job!  Or maybe he and Ann Marie are going out for a fancy dinner at the local supper club!  Senator Mason seems to be the only one who is down with chillin’ at the lake…

That is one hell of a door bell, too!  DING DONG it says… before Mark and Senator can respond to Ann Marie’s Gracious offer.   Darling, now that’s a funny last name, although not entirely unusual… like the last name of the family in the story Peter Pan…  Or perhaps it’s simply a term of endearment.  Hard to know in these exchanges.

Oil!? Mark Exclaims, as if he had never heard of the stuff…  but in the foothills of the Great Smokey / Blue Ridge Mountains? You bet, Mark.  It’s already happening!