Donnelly Rhodes

            On Tuesday 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 shook out my sheet and comforter on the deck and went to bed a little after 1:30. I woke up around 3:30 because I sort of had to pee but drifted back to sleep until 5:00. After yoga I checked for bedbugs and found some stuck to the tape but also a few crawling on the walls just above the baseboards. 

            I worked out the chords for the fifth and sixth verses of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted a Little Money) by Boris Vian. The fifth verse had the same chords as the first verse but the sixth verse was not musically the same as the second. That’s half the song anyway. 

            I revised my translation of the chorus and some of the third verse of “L’île enchanteresses” (The Enchanted Isle) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91.75 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since September 30. 

            In the early afternoon I packed up my laundry and bedding, including the curtains that hang over the bedroom-living room door. Both knobs that go over the bedroom curtains had bedbug nests. I was finished with the laundry a little after 16:00. 

            I weighed 90.85 kilos at 16:30. 

            I took a siesta after lunch and slept until 18:30. I always have a good sleep on freshly clean sheets. 

            I weighed 91.75 kilos at 18:50. That’s the same as the evening of September 30. 

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

            I had a potato with gravy and a heated up wing steak while watching episode 13 of the TV series Custer. 

            The story opens with a stagecoach station under attack by Cheyenne and Custer and his prisoner Colonel Charrington taking shelter behind the overturned wagon. Custer is escorting Charrington to his court martial. Custer manages to kills a couple of Sioux and takes two stage horses and moccasins. He and Charrington escape the attack. 

            The Cheyenne leader War Cloud learns from one of the dying braves that it was Custer that killed him and so the hunt begins. 

            Charrington thinks they’ve lost their hunters but Custer says if he believes that he doesn’t know Cheyenne. Charrington says he fought 400 Cheyenne at Blue Creek. Custer says 250 of them were women and children, Charrington says, “That’s a lie!” “And the rest were weaponless and camped under a flag of truce after turning their weapons in at Fort Lyons.” “I intend to prove that’s a lie!” “You’re going to have to!” Custer tells him to dismount because they are walking from here on. Charrington refuses but Custer tells him War Cloud will be able to track him more easily if he stays mounted. Custer plans to outsmart War Cloud by taking the long way around on foot while wearing the moccasins they took. 

            War Cloud tells Brave Bull that Custer has the heart of a Sioux and so they need to hunt him like a Sioux. He figures that Custer has gone into the Black Hills, which is true. Brave Bull arrives below where Custer and Charrington are hiding in the rocks. Custer stands up to taunt Brave Bull. Charrington fires his pistol to clear a holding rock that frees a boulder to tumble down and kill Brave Bull. Custer says he’s just endangered their lives by firing his gun. Custer says War Cloud is a brilliant tactician and commands one of the finest light cavalries in the world. Charrington wants to take Brave Bull’s scalp for the $20 bounty but Custer stops him. When Charrington’s canteen is empty he throws it away but Custer says they might find water and besides they could use a canteen as a weapon. 

            They attack two braves that are tracking them because now Custer says they need ponies. Make up your mind. Custer takes an arrow in the shoulder. They kill the riders but the horses get away. Charrington has to cut the arrow barb out of Custer’s wound. 

            They need a weapon to deal with the waiting War Cloud when they clear the mountains and hit the plains. Custer fills the empty canteen with gunpowder and adds two bullets. They arrive above War Cloud’s camp. They light the fuse and throw the canteen and the explosion kills one warrior. 

            In a rainstorm Custer and Charrington take shelter in a cave. While there Charrington argues that while he was top of his class at West Point it was Custer who got the glory. Custer says he got field duty by riding 200 kilometers in a day to get General Winfield Scott the wild strawberries he loved. Custer says he cheated, begged and blackmailed to advance but luck had very little to do with it. Charrington points out that the newspapers singled Custer out as the “Boy General” even though three other young men got the same advancement at the same time. So luck had a lot to do with it. Charrington says when he attacked the Cheyenne at Blue Creek he was trying to emulate Custer’s massacre of the Cheyenne at Washita. Charrington says he did the same thing at Blue Creek but got branded a murderer. 

            The next day they are on the plain. Custer puts his ear to the ground and hears War Cloud’s horses coming. They take shelter in a gulley. War Cloud and two men ride past them. Custer captures a live rattlesnake and puts it in a bag to use as a weapon later. 

            The next day they are climbing a butte when War Cloud and his men spot them. Bent Arm climbs after them. Custer and Charrington push a boulder down at him but he dodges it. Custer tells Charrington to head for Fort Hays on his own while he draws War Cloud away. Custer reaches the top of the butte and far below is water. He’s confronted by Bent Arm and his axe. Custer tosses the rattlesnake at him and Bent Arm falls backward. War Cloud approaches and fires his rifle just as Custer leaps off the cliff to the water. War Cloud smiles in admiration as he sees Custer swim to shore. But Charrington is waiting and has two bullets in his pistol. He seems to think if he kills Custer he’ll come out as the hero. He pulls the trigger but it only clicks. Custer says he removed the bullets last night. Charrington attacks but Custer easily subdues him and they continue back to Fort Hays for Charrington’s court martial. 

            War Cloud was played by Canadian actor Donnelly Rhodes, who was the son of Canadian playwright Ann Henry. He trained as a National Park warden in Manitoba, and was an airman mechanic for the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII. He studied at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and was in the first graduating class of the National Theatre School of Canada. He joined the Stratford Festival in 1963. He became a contract player for Universal Pictures. He starred in The Hard Part Begins, He co-starred in Oh Heavenly Dog, Urban Safari, He starred in the Canadian series Danger Bay and Famous Jury Trials. He co-starred in the Canadian series Sidestreet and Da Vinci’s Inquest (for which he was nominated for four Gemini Awards and won one). He played Phillip Chancellor II on The Young and the Restless from 1974 to 1975. He co-starred in 38 episodes of Soap and 27 episodes of the later version of Battlestar Galactica (as the smoking doctor). He co-starred in the radio series Canadia 2056. He said that if he hadn’t been an actor he would have become a naval architect. He was married five times.