Patricia Harty

            After midnight on Sunday I lint-rolled the curtains between the kitchen and the living room, my bed and my pillow. As usual there were quite a few on the curtains and some on the bed. I shook out my sheet and comforter on the deck. I turned the heat on and went to bed at 1:32. I got up to pee at 3:45 and turned the heat off. After yoga I checked for bedbugs and there were a lot both on the carpet tape and crawling on the walls. 

            I had a hell of a time tuning the G and B strings on my Martin. The B sounded off no matter what the tuner said. It took half an hour before I settled for what I could get and so I was only able to work out the chords for the second line of the fourth verse of “Elle voulait toucher du pognon” (She Wanted a Little Money) by Boris Vian. 

            I weighed 90.5 kilos before breakfast. 

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

            Around midday I rode to Canadian Tire in Uppity Village to buy 3 filters for my Cool Mist Humidifier. A woman was also there grabbing three. I asked her if she thought three would be enough to last the winter. She said, “That’s exactly what I was thinking!” She figures one a month. I was thinking one for two months. Since I was there I also bought two rolls of carpet tape. It’s about $2 cheaper at Canadian Tire than at Home Hardware but it’s not worth the $2 saving to ride all the way down there, walk down the big stairs, walk through the big store, then back up the big stairs and ride home again when I can just walk a block and a half over to HH to get the tape and be home in 15 minutes.

            I weighed 91.85 kilos at 13:55. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but it was sprinkling so I decided to only go as far as Ossington and Bloor before going home. 

            I weighed 91.55 kilos at 17:30. I was still a blogpost behind in my journal and so I worked on getting caught up. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, potato wedges, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching episode 11 of the TV series Custer. 

            Custer and the 7th Cavalry have been ordered to compel a hunting party of Cheyenne braves that has gone off the reservation go back where the government says they belong. But they go about this “persuasion” in a really fucked up manner. They approach the Cheyenne campsite at night while the braves are sleeping and surprise them. Custer expressly orders his men not to shoot under any circumstances. But one of the troopers trips over a log and his gun goes of. The Cheyenne wake up and think they are under attack so they start firing. Custer and his men shoot back. What happened to “under no circumstances”? Why couldn’t they have approached them during the day with a white flag? All of the braves are killed except for one wounded warrior who gets away. One of the dead braves is Black eagle, the younger brother of Chief Tall Knife. 

            In General Terry’s quarters we see that his sister Melinda is visiting but he regrets that she brought along “that blasted female dragon… That female Horace Greeley (Horace Greeley was founder and editor of The New York Tribune, which was the biggest newspaper in the US. He coined the phrase “Go west young man” and was an advocate of Socialism, Feminism, Temperance, and Vegetarianism)”. Melinda reminds him that he insisted that she not travel alone. He says she had the nerve to tell him at breakfast that this is the red man’s land and that he had no right to be there (According to the treaty, that’s true. The main reason for the American Revolution was to break King George’s treaty that forbade colonists from settling west of the Appellation Mountains). The woman in question is Anne Peverly who publishes a liberal magazine called Bold Venture. Terry predicts that the next thing she’ll be advocating is women smoking, wearing men’s pants, and even voting. 

            Custer comes to see Terry and tells him there was no point in bothering that Cheyenne hunting party. He says there’s no sense to driving the Cheyenne here and there. Terry says, “We don’t make policy. We merely carry it out!” “Then the people who make the policy should be out here to see what’s going on!” Anne comes out to introduce herself to Custer. Terry says she’s a social reformer and a militant suffragette. Custer says he knows that she has published a number of unflattering articles about him. Terry tells Custer that Anne is President Grant’s favourite niece (He didn’t have a niece by that name). 

            Tall Knife arrives to collect his brother’s body and demands to talk to Custer. Custer tries to explain that it was an accident but all Tall Knife knows is that his brother was killed for no reason. Tall Knife cuts himself and with his bloody hand grips a white arrow, which he throws at Custer’s feet. It’s a challenge to fight but Custer says he won’t fight with him. Tall Knife says the Cheyenne will hunt one more time then and leaves. 

            Later Ann accuses Custer of attacking a small Cheyenne hunting party and murdering all but one of them. Custer argues that for more than 100 years the plains tribes have fought the growth of the US. Now they stand in the direct path of uniting the two halves of the nation. He says in any war mistakes are made. She says, “War? Our trampling on their rights by armed might is war?” She cites the massacre of the Cheyenne at the Wichita River on November 27, 1868 (Black Kettle’s village was peaceful but sometimes young warriors who had participated in raids of settlements did stay there. The peace chief Black Kettle was shot in the back trying to escape. Custer took women and children as hostages to use as human shields so they would not be attacked by other Cheyenne villages on their way out after the slaughter.) Custer argues that the attack on the village was ordered as a reprisal against several murders of settlers. Ann says she’s going to publish this most recent attack. 

            Custer tells the scout California Joe that he’s going to try to talk to Tall Knife again. Joe says he’s always believed the Cheyenne are meaner than the Sioux and now they can put it to the test. He says, “The fellers at that new Smithsonian Institution are gonna be mighty grateful to them for finding out.” 

           They find the burned out cabin of some settlers and their children and everyone dead. They see a large war party headed for Fort Hays and so they ride back to warn everyone. They get there in time and Custer wants to go back out to try again to talk with Tall Knife but Terry refuses to allow it. That night Long Knife comes to demand to be given Custer. He says they will attack at sunrise. 

           Terry has his sister and Ann sent away from Fort Hays to Fort Riley for their protection but when they make camp en route the two soldier escorts are attacked and the women are abducted. Sergeant Bustard is wounded but makes it back to the fort to tell what happened. Soon one of Tall Knife’s warriors rides up and tosses Melinda’s hat at Custer’s feet. He tells him if he comes alone the women go free but if he stays at the fort they die. 

            Custer wants to go but Terry orders him confined to his quarters. However that night Custer sneaks out. He finds Joe and Bustard in the courtyard who tell him they’ve already saddled a horse for him and it’s waiting outside the gate, plus there’s a ladder against the north wall so the guard at the gate won’t see him. Custer tells Bustard that when he gets back he’s going to have him court martialed for helping an officer break confinement. 

            Custer arrives at Tall Knife’s camp and asks for the women to be released but Tall Knife says tomorrow they will hunt. Custer will take the women with him and if he survives so will they. Custer is placed in the tent where Melinda and Ann are being held. Custer tells them that sometimes the Cheyenne will let captives go so they can hunt them (It’s bullshit that the Cheyenne hunted their captives for sport. It’s just a Hollywood trope). 

            At sunrise Tall Knife tells them to run and says when the sun is a little higher he’ll come after them. They run to a spot where Custer buried a gun in anticipation of this hunt. 

           The hunters are now on their trail. Custer has Melinda jump from a cliff into the water but he has to throw Ann down. It turns out she can’t swim so Custer has to help her. They clear the water but Tall Knife spots them and they charge. Custer shoots the first three and runs. They climb the rocks and one of Tall Knife’s men follows. Custer throw his knife and kills him. 

            Now Tall Knife himself climbs up and he and Custer fight. Ann throws a rock and hits Tall Knife in the head, which slows him down a bit. Tall knife lunges at Custer and stumbles over the cliff, hanging on by a rock, Custer pulls him up to save him and now Tall Knife believes that his brother’s death was an accident. 

            Ann was played by Patricia Harty, who took classes in singing and dancing while still a child. She was an English major at Columbia University. She made her TV debut as a dancer on Pat Boone’s Chevy Show. She also danced on The Perry Como Show and the Garry Moore Show. Her first acting work was in toothpaste commercials. She co-starred in the sitcoms Occasional Wife and The Bob Crane Show. She starred in the 1968 version of Blondie. She co-starred in the film Herbie The Love Bug.