Around Dodge City and in the territory on west, there is just one way to handle the
killers and the spoilers and that's where the US Marshal and the smell of gunsmoke.
Gunsmoke starring William Conrad, the story of the violence that moved west with young
America and the story of a man who moved with it.
I'm that man, Matt Dillon, United States Marshal, the first man they look for and the last they
want to meet.
It's a chance a job and it makes a man watchful and a little lonely.
I declare if this keeps up we're going to be needing us a heart, Mr. Dillon.
Well, we can't make much headway through this.
We better look around for cover.
I don't rightly know anybody who settled around here.
Sure would help if this prairie had a few trees to shelter a body.
Yep, a lightning didn't hit him.
Hey, look over there, Chester, isn't that a light?
Yes, sir, it sure is.
Whose place do you suppose?
I don't care whose place, as long as it has a roof on it.
Come on.
It's a house, all right, Mr. Dillon.
But I don't see that light anymore.
It seems to have gone out or something.
Now let's tie our horses around here out of the wind.
All right.
You ready?
Let's run for it.
Hello?
Hello in there?
Well, I know I've seen a light, Mr. Dillon.
There must be plain deep in there.
Or dead.
Come on, open up.
Mr. Dillon, look.
What?
The shutter on that window there, it's opening.
Oh.
I'm sorry to roast you up, but I thank you for sheltered with stormlets up.
Go away.
I don't like to bother you, ma'am, but...
Okay, go away.
Look, I'm a U.S. Marshal on my way back to Dodge.
Maybe I know your husband.
Are you alone out here?
It don't matter.
Go away.
Oh.
Come on, Chester.
Mr. Dillon, maybe if we...
I said come on.
All right.
I swear, that ain't the unfriendliest...
It's more than that, Chester.
What do you mean?
She's scared to death about something.
Well, we better get moving before we freeze to death.
All right.
Oh, Donald, I sure did have my mouth set for a cup of coffee.
Well, it might have been set for good.
What?
She was pointing a shotgun out of that window.
Now, just listen a minute.
I'm not going to tell you a story, if you will.
I've got a little story to tell you.
Well, it's not such a little story.
It's sort of a tall tale.
Ever hear tell of Wind Wagon Smith?
Well, according to legend, we practically owe our whole system of modern transportation to old Wind Wagon.
Yes, sir.
Before his days, folks traveled afoot on horseback or by ox-team.
With Wind Wagon, he wasn't about to put up with that slow type of travel at Nosiree.
For him, 15 miles a day seemed like standing still,
so he came up with a contraption that he called a prairie clipper.
The clipper was a wagon without any kind of animals to pull it.
It had a sail sticking up from the middle of it, just like a ship at sea.
That clipper moved along pretty good, too.
When the wind was right, old Wind Wagon figured he could make around 70 miles in one day.
At first, folks all laughed at him.
But when he pointed out how the country was spreading out,
and how big cities would be springing up right and left,
and how people would need transportation for themselves and their goods,
they began to figure that the clipper might be a pretty good idea then.
Well, to kind of kick off the clipper to a good start,
Wind Wagon invited the United States Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy to go along on the maiden voyage.
But disaster struck.
The clipper got out of control.
The Secretary of War rolled out of the clipper,
and the Secretary of the Navy bounced into a cactus patch.
But Wind Wagon and the clipper kept it going until they were plumb lost over the horizon.
No one ever saw the clipper again.
But as transportation grew in America, people all over the country told of seeing Wind Wagon Smith.
They say he was in the pilot house of the first steamboat to sail up the Yellowstone.
He held the Golden Spike when the first transcontinental railroad was completed.
And when the first transcontinental plane roared off the runway,
it was Wind Wagon Smith, the spirit of American transportation, who waved the pilot on his way.
Yes, sir. He really got around, old Wind Wagon did.
Say, isn't it nice being citizens of a country where you can laugh and talk about things free as a breeze,
and write and read and worship too?
Yes, sir. Maybe you don't think about it much, but you should.
Is that Sir William Hatt, the one you have smushed?
Come on.
What?
Come on. Now, is that him, Jenny?
Is that the man?
Just a minute here.
Now speak up.
Who are you?
Is that the man?
That's him.
You can let go of her, mister. Now, what's your name?
Judd Barton.
Now, my woman says you was the one who was out to my place last night.
I seen the horse tracks.
You live north of town, just past Little Creek.
That's my place.
Now, I don't allow nobody coming around my woman.
It was storming, Barton. I figured your place was for a shelter.
Well, you sure was wrong about that.
Now, wait a minute. There were two of us there. Didn't she tell you that?
You're the one she talked to.
Well, that sure didn't do me any good. She didn't let us in.
Did you, Miss Barton?
No. I didn't let her...
No? Well, I'll tell you...
Now, wait a minute, Barton.
You ever come out there again, Marshal, I'll kill you.
Your badge won't do you no good. I'll kill you sure.
I've moved two times now just to keep men away from my woman.
I ain't aiming to move again.
Get out of here, Barton.
Now, I warned you.
Go on. Get out of here.
All right. Come along, Kitty.
Want another beer, Matt?
No, thanks, Kitty. I think I'll just sit here for a while.
I hear you got your feet wet the other night.
Did Chester tell you?
Yeah, he was in here, sneezing earlier today.
I couldn't get him to take his wet boots off after we got back.
Why not?
He said he'd better keep his feet on them to keep them from shrinking.
His feet?
Next time I'll let Chester tell his own story.
Mr. Dillon?
Evening, Mr. Kitty.
Hello, Chester.
See what I mean?
Mr. Dillon, there's a lady outside claiming she has to see you.
Oh, who is she?
I don't know. She said somebody told her you was here,
and she don't rightly feel she ought to come into a saloon.
Of course not.
Well, I better go see what she wants.
I'll see you later, Kitty.
All right, man.
Marshal Dillon.
Huh? Miss Wharton.
Jenny, Marshal. Just... Jenny.
You wanted to see me?
I had to see you. You've got to help me, Marshal.
Oh? Where's your husband?
He's back at the place. They're drunk.
I don't know how I'd have stood it if he didn't drink himself into a stupor every once and so often.
Well, what is it you want me to do, Miss Wharton?
Jenny.
Huh. All right. Jenny, well, what can I do?
Hide me, Marshal. Please, hide me.
I've got to be hit by the time it comes to...
Well, I'd sure like to help you, Jenny, but I can't do that.
Marshal, I can't go back to...
Well, the law can't come between a man and his wife, Jenny.
You don't understand. I've got to have help.
Hey. Jenny.
What's the matter?
She fainted, Chester. You go find Doc. I'll carry her on up to his office.
There we are now. You just lie there quietly for a little while.
And should you be all right, I'll be back shortly.
Is she all right, Doc?
That's a messy business.
What's the matter with her? Is she going to be all right?
I suppose so. I suppose she'll be all right this time.
But she can't go through with this many more times, not if she wants to live.
I don't understand. What do you mean?
I mean that she's been beaten, Matt, savagely and often.
I'll tell you something else, Sue.
It's like signing her death warrant to send her back to that husband of hers.
Yeah, I guess you're right.
I know I'm right.
By all that's holy, a man who'd do a thing like that ought to be strung up.
Yeah.
Uh, is it going to be all right to move her?
Yes, she can move.
Won't be too comfortable for her, but she can move.
I'll take her over to Kitty's until I can fix it so that this won't happen again.
You get it all fixed up, Mr. Dillon?
Yeah, Chester, I just left her up in Kitty's room.
I gave her a potter so that she'd sleep through the night.
Oh, my, that poor lady.
What kind of a man would do a thing like that?
I don't know.
It looks like we're going to get to know him better real soon.
Is that him?
Dillon!
Yeah.
Where is she, Dillon?
Where you got her?
You come to give her another beating?
She's my woman. I come for her.
I haven't got her, Barton.
Oh, you got her all right.
You got her. You're the only one she ever run off to.
Now you give her back, Marshal. I'll kill you.
Now, you listen to me, Barton. I haven't got her.
I don't care much whether you believe me or not, but I haven't got her.
I don't believe you.
But if I did have her, I wouldn't turn her over to you.
You nearly kill her as it is.
That's my business.
I'm making it my business.
I don't know what kind of a man you think you are, beating a woman like that.
And I don't care, but my job is to protect people from the likes of you.
I'm going to find her, Dillon.
That's the first thing I'm going to do.
Then I'm going to kill you.
You get out of that, Shbardon.
No. You just climb on that horse of yours and the head on out.
I'll be back, Dillon.
Yeah.
And he will be back too, Mr. Dillon. He's too old-fired, mean not to.
Yeah, I know. But right now I'm playing for time.
How's that, Mr. Dillon?
We've got to get Jenny out of here.
Well, you got a plan?
No, not yet.
I better come up with something by morning.
Because Barton's not going to stay put very long.
Well, yeah, Matt, she's sleeping all right now.
It took her a long time to settle down.
Too scared, huh?
Scared to death.
But that's not all. There's something else bothering her, Matt.
Something she doesn't want to talk about.
What is it?
I'm not sure. But she acts sort of ashamed about something.
She's got nothing to be ashamed about?
Well, of course not. Anyway, she's pretty desperate to get out of Dodge.
Yeah. She, uh, mention any place that she could go?
Well, she talked about a brother.
Oh?
Said he'd always take her in no matter what.
Oh, where does he live, you know?
In North of here. Off the stage line someplace.
Thirty, forty miles away, I think.
Well, that's a thing to do, then.
But, Matt, the stage is one thing Barton's sure to watch.
Can you get her ready in the morning?
Oh, sure. But isn't that risky?
She took a chance coming here, Kitty.
She'll have to take a chance getting to her brother.
In France, Mont-Vert means Green Mountain.
In the United States, Vermont means Green Mountain.
The similarity is purely intentional,
for the mountainous state of Vermont was originally settled by the French.
There is other evidence, too, of the early French settlers, like Vergens,
the one-time capital named for the French Minister of Foreign Affairs.
But despite its French ancestry, Vermont is American through and through,
from Ethan Allen and the furniture which is made today bearing his name,
to Steamtown, USA, near Bellows Falls,
from St. Albans, leading producer of an all-American commodity,
maple syrup, to a little country store in Weston.
The fresh fragrance of red clover,
the granite beneath its hills characteristic of its people,
the well-known Vermont cussedness or independence,
Admiral George Dooley and Calvin Coolidge,
all things typically American, typically Vermont.
Driver, how soon are we leaving?
Any minute now, ma'am.
Oh, good, that's good.
Oh, will you please watch the way you handle that case?
Sure thing, ma'am.
You've got it upside down.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Well, now we'll fix that and I'll set it right up there on top.
No, no, I wandered in the stage with me. Do you hear?
I guess that'll be all right, ma'am. Sure enough, pull up.
Thank you, driver.
We're home, Jim.
Oh, hello there, Chester.
Is everything all right? I mean, is everything...
Oh, sure, Chester. There's nothing to worry about this trip.
I only got one passenger.
Oh, well, that's good.
Unless this gents figuring on riding with us, too.
You take in the stage, mister.
I'll let you know.
Well, you better make up your mind,
because I'm fixing to leave as soon as I send you on these bags.
Jim, will you mind getting around the other side for a minute, Chester?
I want to tie up this one.
Wait, wait, wait, Jim. I have to...
Here you.
Yeah?
Aren't you the feller that I seen with Marshall last night?
Well, you might have seen me with him.
Why are you so interested in this stage?
Well, I was just down to see Jim for a minute. We're old friends.
What was it, Chester?
Nothing, Jim, I guess. I guess I said just about all I had to say before.
Well, I should certainly think so.
I don't know how many times you have to tell me.
Jim, just a minute.
I'll make the stop, all right, just like you said.
Stop? You want to make a special stop?
Well, mister, I don't know.
Well, now, that's interesting, ain't it?
I think I'll just ride along with you after all.
You ain't got a ticket.
This gun is all the ticket I need.
Oh, why?
I'm on up there now.
Well, now...
Go on.
And I'm going to ride, right?
Now listen, mister...
Oh, shut up. I'll take that whip.
Hey-ya!
Well, who was that man? What in the world was he doing?
I can't take time to explain it to you now, ma'am. I got to get moving.
Now, what have I got there, Janay?
You climb out and onto the stage as fast as you can, huh?
I'll try, Marshal.
I'll watch until you've gotten safely away.
I sure am beholden to you for what you're doing.
That's all right. Everybody needs a little help once in a while.
Now, there's the stage road.
We'll pull over into these cottonwoods and wait.
Ah! Ah!
Yeah, ought to be coming along any time now.
I hope so.
I... I just assumed this was all behind me.
You're doing fine.
Lots of things I'm thinking I ain't saying, Marshal.
I don't need to say anything.
One thing I'd like you to know, Special.
It wasn't true about me and the other men, Marshal.
It never was true.
It was just Judd's crazy way of looking at things.
Any man I saw, he's suspicious.
He had a... a crazy way.
Yeah, well, it's about the kindest thing he could say about him.
Maybe I deserved it.
I can't help thinking maybe it was all doomy.
Here comes the stage, Jenny.
It's Judd!
What?
It's Judd, Marshal, up by the driver.
Oh, get down on that wagon bed and stay down.
Jenny, I've seen you!
I've seen you there, Jenny!
I know you're kind of right there in that wagon, Marshal.
And now I'm going to kill you.
Don't do it.
Pardon me.
Marshal?
Well?
Is he dead?
Yeah, Jim, he's dead.
He was crazy, Marshal, plum crazy.
Yeah, he was.
I'm sorry I had to kill him, Jenny.
I don't think anything short of that would have stopped him, Marshal.
He was full of hate.
You must have seen something in him once, though, to marry him.
No, Marshal.
Judd never married me.
He just claimed me.
Well, why didn't you speak up, Jenny?
Folks could have helped you in knowing that and saved you a lot of hurt.
It was a shame.
I couldn't face the shame of telling folks I was living that way.
It was easier taking the beatings?
Yes, Marshal, it was.
A woman needs to be thought of as respectable.
Marshal?
Marshal, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Gun smoke, produced and directed by Norman McDonald, stars William Conrad as Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshal.
Featured in the cast were Parley Bear as Chester, Howard McNear as Doc, and Georgia Ellis as Kitty.
George Walsh speaking.
Join us again next week for another specially transcribed story on gun smoke.
This is the United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.
The United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.