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.

Right you are George!  Well, how foolish of me to have counted Ol’ Johnny Lone Elk out of the story.  True, they won’t be looking for you, will they??  The way Martin Riggs was thought to be dead and came out of nowhere in the first (and best thank you very much) Lethal Weapon…

Talk about none worse for wear!  It’s like they landed on a pillow top mattress!

I must comment again on how the traditional markers are not being observed in James Allen’s Trailverse…  If you had placed Johnny in a line up in the Dodd/Elrod days, we would have immediately assumed that he was bad- to the bone.  Long hair, stubble, we’d assume that this guy was up to no good!!  But we can’t judge a book by its cover now, can we?!

I know that over the years Mark has been known to lack empathy, but this takes it beyond the pale…  No sense in calling yourself an “Old Friend” of Mark’s when in the direst of circumstances he simply writes you off…  Sort of like that scene in Austin Powers when Mustafa (played by Will Ferrell- ha!) falls victim to the tipping chair that throws you into a burning pit to supposedly die and all you end up with is getting badly burned…

Pray?  Since when did you become a man of God, Mark?  Your faith lies only in your own invincibility and the fact that you have a comic strip named for you, which guarantees you about 10,000 lives…

…talking up a storm, that is…  Ha!

Notice how quiet Baldy is now…  letting Mark prattle on.  He doesn’t want another dose of Trailian Justice…  But then Mark seems to have lost his touch- usually the fisticuffs are what ends a story, but I guess not now…

So as the wormhole opens upon the prairie, we have Sheriff Don making his way, the FBI staying home, and Cherry at Lost Forest not even slightly concerned about the FBI calling her…  And Lone Elk given up for dead.

It’s clear that “Lady” is back up on the horse, but it was equally clear that she wasn’t just a minute ago…  (two days or so in Trail-time…) And Mark, since when do you start talking like you are from t deep south?  Y’all?  What the H’ell…

Glad to see that Blondie is able to keep her coiffure in order… despite the falling rain and gale for winds…

Since Mark still doesn’t know anyone’s name, besides his own and Johnny’s, he has to resort to “Lady” which is not a very good descriptor for one who double-crosses and wields s gun…

I expect Blondie to now turn on Baldy, given that his sense of timing and level of patience continues to be maddeningly off…  I mean, ho long did that fight last? 2 or 3 seconds?  And he’s kvetching about how long it took her to fire a shot across Mark’s prow??

Wasn’t onto you?!  Surely, lady, you have not met the likes of Mark Trail!  (Mr. Trail to you!)  He plays dumb, and at times (mostly) pulls it off… but I guess he was onto you the whole time.  I wonder what tipped him off??

There’s the gun!!

Suddenly, shots are fired and the lighting comes up and Blondie reveals herself for what she is!  A no-good-nick!  A Baddie, a regular Mata Hari…  Mark looks like he is ready to go low in panel three- the tackling skills that put many a crook down…  Unfortunately Mark’s brain right now is a study in cognitive dissonance…  “What th-…  a woman?  THE woman that I figured on having to save?  And whose advances I would have to fend off, to whom I would have to explain that I am a happily married man?”  Poor Mark… He just wasn’t made for these times…

How long has it been, boys and girls?  How long has it been since Mark was allowed to unleash the fists of fury??  A left AND a right…

This has been a loooong time coming, though, right??  A slow burn- the likes of which we have never seen in the Trailverse- to the point where we all figured Mark had turned in his man-badge and was just going to be put-upon for the rest of time… I love the monologue as he’s delivering the haymakers!  And just look at the spit flying in the second panel… seriously.  I can’t get enough of this…

Aren’t we all just a wee bit tired (OK, very tired) of Grumpy McGrumperson’s snarl?

What on earth did Mark say this time to make Baldy cross?  Apparently simply answering questions is enough to set him off…  “Do you think he’s still alive down there?”  “You stay here – I’ll go check!” is seemingly more than he can handle… Of course I’d be pissed too, if I had raindrops pelting my bald head and running down my face…  At least Trail has HelmetHair, guaranteed to keep his scalp dry, if nothing else…

So… I guess the “trick riding” skills have come in handy here…  somehow Johnny and his steed managed to complete their revolutions on the way down and while not exactly landing on their feet, seem only slightly worse for wear…

KA-THUD… is that the sound a horse makes when landing on its side and breaking ribs?  We all know the time honored UUNNGH! The sound of a Trailian man landing on his backside after a plunge off a cliff… again no harm done…

Well this sucks.  I don’t think Johnny’s ride is going to survive this tumble…  sort of like the scene in the movie The Revenant…  We’ll have to see how Johnny makes out.  I see foot in stirrup, but that’s about it…

But thank you, Captain Obvious, for making sure we all know what is going on…  We’ll have to see Monday how this all turns out…

As if on cue, enter Mother Nature, stage left…

Why not, you know?  It was high time that she got in on the act…  But Lone Elk going over a cliff?  Does that constitute trick riding?  By the look on his face and the way the horse is all tucked up, it seems as though he intended to do this…

Man, criminals sure can be needy…

My friend?  Now there’s a Trailverse standby if ever there was one…  No, not your friend, bitch, you are the one that has forced us into this situation, now you can suck it up, buttercup… Note how Mark’s hair remains impervious to the wind and driving rain…  We can draw comfort from those things that do not change, come what may…

I guess Sheriff Don Stober is a man accustomed to going it alone…  so off he goes into a driving rain, astride one and leading another heavy horse… while the Feds are warm and dry inside their field office…

But that’s how he likes it, as he promises to bring Jimmy’s horses back to him in one piece.  I wonder if that’s the entire herd- there’s six of them now committed to this caper.  We would suppose not though, as there are the “fast” ones yet in the barn…

Fear not, Jimmy… good always prevails in the Trailverse.  It might take us a while to get there, but good always prevails…

So… Strong it is!  Judging by the build, these are either Percheron or Clydesdale horses, heavy horses built to pull and carry.  Makes me wonder what Sheriff Don wants with a second one, maybe to haul bank-robber carcasses back to the jailhouse…

“Serve you well?”  “Hopefully?”  Good lord, who writes these lines? Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.  You show up, demand mounts, and then damn them with faint praise.

And what’s with the rain gear Jimmy is wearing?  Looks like a surplus haz-mat suit from the Army-Navy store…