Adam Williams

            On Monday after midnight I added fresh carpet tape to the edges of my mattress where it had gotten less sticky. I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room, the top of my bed and the pillow. As usual most of the bedbugs were on the living room side of the bedroom curtains. I couldn’t shake out my sheet and comforter because the deck was wet. I turned the heat on and went to bed just before 2:00. I woke up just before 4:00 to pee and turn the heat off. I went back to bed until 5:00. After yoga there were quite a few bedbugs stuck to the tape and a few crawling freely. 

            I worked out the chords for the fourth verse of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted a Little Money) by Boris Vian. I think the fourth verse completes the pattern and verses 5 to 8 and 9 to 12 will have the same chords as 1 to 4. But I’ll find out for sure on Tuesday. 

            I finished memorizing “L’île enchanteresses” (The Enchanted Isle) by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll finish revising my translation and start working out the chords. 

            I weighed 90.95 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since October 3. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the second of four sessions and it went out of tune most of the time. 

            I weighed 92.25 kilos before lunch. That’s the hardest I’ve been on the scale in the early afternoon since October 1. 

            I took a siesta and slept until 16:40 so by the time I brushed my teeth it was too late for a bike ride downtown and almost too tardy for a ride to Ossington and Bloor but I went there. 

            I weighed 91.2 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was still a blog post behind and worked on catching up. 

            I grilled two wing steaks and had one with potato wedges and gravy while watching episode 12 of the TV series Custer. 

            Custer and Sergeant Bustard are escorting John Glixton of the railroad, scouting the area that’s going to be surveyed before the tracks are laid down. They reach the border of Fredonia, which is in the path of the railroad. Custer is surprised to learn that Glixton already sent his crew into Fredonia. Fredonia is an area staked out by ex-Confederates trying to set up their own country (This is fiction. There was a Republic of Fredonia attempted in Texas when Mexico still controlled it. It was a first attempt by settlers to declare independence from Mexico. There were communities of Confederates established in Brazil and some of their descendants are still there). 

           They find the survey crew but they are immediately surrounded and disarmed by the leader of Fredonia, Zebediah Jackson and his men. After disarming the crew, Jackson allows them to leave on foot and unarmed. Glixton tells Jackson a special act of the United States Congress gives him the right to be there. Jackson tells him he is no longer in the United States and they are his prisoners. He lets them mount up and escorts them into the settlement of Fredonia. They have their own army made up of the male citizens. When they are not drilling they are working the field or building the town. Jackson orders Bustard and Glixton locked up in the grainery. 

           Sergeant Carhew of Fredonia confronts Custer about cutting his men to pieces at Appomattox during the Civil War. Carhew pulls a knife and says the war isn’t over while Custer is still living. Jackson stops him and says there’s no room for private vengeance in Fredonia.

            Jackson takes Custer to his house and introduces him to his wife Annie. She is cold towards Custer because Union troops burned her house and killed her father during the war. 

            Jackson says after the war he was in a prison camp for a year, then they let him go home but home was gone. There was a plantation that had been in his family for five generations but when he returned it now belonged to a Yankee carpetbagger (Carpetbaggers were northerners who took advantage of the devastation in the south after the war and profited from it). Jackson says in all the time they owned that plantation they never once had a slave (It’s not possible that a southerner would have owned a plantation without slaves and not likely that they would have had a competitive large farm without some amount of enslaved workforce. If Jackson’s family had a farm without slaves it would have needed to be a relatively small property). 

            Custer reminds Jackson that this is Crow territory but Jackson says they get along with the Crow better than the US army does. They trade them hard goods in exchange for meat. 

            Jackson and some of his men escort Custer, Bustard, and Glixton to the Fredonia border. The see some young Crow on the hill and while Jackson doesn’t think they’ll attack he plays it safe and they take cover behind some rocks. Custer says they are just boys testing their courage. They’ll charge one at a time and whoever places his lance in the ground closest to the enemy has the most courage. Jackson tells his men to hold their fire. One teenager comes, then another, each closer than the other. But when the third gets closer still Carhew fires his rifle and kills him. Custer warns Jackson that now he might have found himself in one of the bloodiest Crow wars ever seen. 

            Jackson tells Custer he can leave now but warns that he will be killed if he returns. 

            That night at Fort Hays General Terry tells Custer that the survey crew are going back to Fredonia tomorrow with Custer and ten of his men to protect them. 

            That night in Fredonia Jackson tells Carhew that he wants him to leave the settlement because he can’t have a hothead in his command who can’t follow orders. The Crow chief Brave Dog comes to see Jackson and demands to be given Carhew in exchange for his son who he killed. Jackson says he can’t give him Carhew but Brave Dog says he will come for him in one day. 

            Sergeant Bustard, being an ex-Confederate soldier, sympathizes with the dream of Jackson and the other members of Fredonia. He approaches Glixton and suggests they just run the railroad 50 kilometers south of Fredonia. Glixton tells Bustard he shouldn’t concern himself with a bunch of redneck crackers. Bustard grabs him but then lets go and says he wouldn’t dirty his hands on him. Bustard turns to walk away but Glixton hits him in the back of the head with a whisky bottle. They fight and Bustard is winning until they are broken up. Glixton says he attacked him without provocation. Custer asks Bustard for his side but he says he’s got nothing to say that would make a difference.

            Bustard’s punishment is to march for six hours with ten cannonballs in his backpack and he’s demoted to corporal. 

            Custer, his ten men and the survey crew head out and stop to camp for the night. Brave Dog comes to talk to Custer. He asks Custer to rest his horses for one day at this campsite where the grass is high. Then he leaves. 

            Custer tells his men they are going to take Fredonia in a silent raid at daybreak. Four men will secure the armoury while Custer will take four men to capture Jackson. Custer is sure it can be done without killing anyone but Bustard says he knows these people better than Custer and they will fight to the death. Later Bustard is seen heading for Fredonia. Glixton says bustard will warn Jackson so they’ll be ready for them. Custer changes his plan. Now he’ll take Jackson alone while the rest of the men are to lock up everyone in Fredonia in the grainery. At dawn, one by one citizens going about their business are quietly grabbed, gagged and locked in the grain shed. Bustard approaches Custer and says he didn’t desert. he just went ahead to make sure taking the town could be done without harm. Custer goes to Jackson’s house and tries to get him to make sure his men cooperate. They fight until Custer wins. The Crow are about to attack. Custer tells Jackson if he gives his word that his men won’t cause trouble he’ll arm them. Jackson promises. The Crow attack and they fight them to their first retreat. Carhew points his rifle at Custer and says he’s going to shoot him and watch him slowly die. But Carhew trips and when he gets up he runs from the town where the Crow are waiting outside and he is immediately killed. With Carhew dead, Brave Dog calls off the attack. Jackson, a little too quickly accepts that he’s a citizen of the United States of America. Custer plans to get Fredonia officially declared as a town have it assigned a US Marshal. He promotes Bustard back to sergeant. Carhew was played by Adam Williams, who was a decorated Navy pilot during WWII. He later served as an examiner for The Federal Aviation Administration. He made his film debut in Queen for a Day in 1951. He starred in Without Warning, after which he was type cast as a villain and a psycho. He co-starred in the Twilight Zone episodes “The Hitch Hiker” and “A Most Unusual Camera”.