Susan Oliver

            On Wednesday morning I continued to edit “J'suis snob" by Boris Vian on my Christian's Translations blog.

            I finished memorizing “Oh mon amour baiser” by Serge Gainsbourg and started working out the chords.

            I pulled my desk out one more time, put my computer on a stool and my monitor on a chair and washed the top, back, sides and the top and sides of the kneehole. I didn’t have time to do the front, which will also involve cleaning the insides of the drawers. Besides the water in the bucket was black by the time I’d done the other parts. In the next session I should be able to get it all done.

            I had a sliced sausage and cheese on Triscuits for lunch.

            I did some exercises in the afternoon and then took a bike ride to Bloor and Bathurst, south to Queen and then home.

            I walked over to the liquor store and bought a six-pack of Creemore.

            I got caught up on my journal.

            I did a little more work on my review of David Jure’s "The Patient English".

            I worked on “My Blood in a Bug”.

            I had two beef patties, a sausage and a beer for dinner while watching Wagon Train.

            This story begins with four men that look like Pawnee murdering a man and robbing from money and California land deeds from the wagon train. Flint, who has lived with some tribes, is certain that they weren’t really Pawnee because they wouldn't place any value on money. He goes out to try and track the killers down. We see that the men are indeed not Pawnee but rather white men dressed and made up as Pawnee to cover up their crimes. Their leader is Ned Rossiter who is married to and abuses Emily and is stepfather to her sixteen-year-old daughter Judy. Rossiter is mean and abusive and Emily needs security and so she puts up with it. Judy goes out with her rifle and when she sees Flint riding through the woods she shoots his hat off. He sneaks up behind her to find out why but she says she just likes to shoot people’s hats off. Flint meets Rossiter and is invited to stay the night. After Flint goes to bed in the barn Rossiter abuses Emily. Judy goes to the barn to ask Flint to take her away. He says he’ll try to help her. Flint goes to the Pawnee village and tells True Oak that someone raided the wagon train and left a tomahawk behind. True Oak says a Pawnee would never leave a tomahawk behind. He tells Flint that he knows Rossiter is the murderer. Flint goes back to Rossiter's house. He asks Emily why she travelled from Kentucky with Judy. She said she’d been with her first husband when Pawnee or people disguised as Pawnee killed her husband. Rossiter offered her and hr daughter shelter and so she married him. Flint tells Emily about the murder and the theft and wonders if she knows about it. Emily seems frightened and says she can't help him. Flint talks to Judy and she shows him a present that Rossiter's friend Hank gave her. He told her that he’d bought it from a Pawnee. Flint sees it’s a St Christopher’s medal, which is one of the items that had been stolen from the wagon train. Flint goes to Emily and tells her that her husband is a murderer. She seems to know but she is afraid to help. Flint offers to help her and Judy join the wagon train so they can start a new life in California. She gives in and starts helping Flint look for where Rossiter hid the stolen items. But when Judy hears about it she is angry because she thinks that Flint had only become her friend to get information. She rides away and runs into Rossiter and his partners. She angrily gives Hank back the St Christopher medal now that she knows it was stolen from a dead man. But she has inadvertently tipped Rossiter off.  Flint finds the loot hidden in the barn. They hear the men riding in and so Flint has to make it look like Emily didn’t help. He ties her to a post in the barn and hides. When they come in Judy sees Flint in the hay and then says she just saw Flint ride away. They run out. Rossiter and Si go after him and Hank stays behind. Flint jumps Hank and ties him up. He, Emily and Judy mount horses and head for the wagon train with Rossiter and his men in pursuit. As they are catching up Flint and the women have to take shelter in the rocks. There is a shoot out. Emily steps in front of a bullet that would have hit Judy and is wounded in the shoulder. Judy shoots one of the men. Rossiter sneaks behind Flint and is about to shoot him when suddenly he gets an arrow in the back. True Oak is standing in the distance. One of Rossiter’s men tries to shoot True Oak but Flint kills him. Flint helps Emily and Judy pack their things on a wagon and they join the wagon train.

            Emily was played by the great Mercedes McCambridge.

            Judy had a strange accent and I thought for sure she was a Scandinavian trying badly to sound like someone from the southern United States. But she was played by Susan Oliver, who was born in New York. She went to private schools and had a privileged background and so maybe that’s where she got her strange way of talking. She lived with her father in Japan for a while and then joined her famous astrologer mother Ruth Oliver in Hollywood. Susan played Vina in the “The Cage”, the initially unaired pilot episode of Star Trek. Her character was the sole survivor of a crashed spaceship, horribly disfigured but made to appear beautiful by the mind-manipulating natives of the planet. She wrote and directed "Cowboysan", about Japanese actors performing in a western.