Around Dodge City and in the territory on West, there is just one way to handle the killers and the spoilers, and that's with the U.S. Marshal and the smell of gun smoke.
Gun Smoke, 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, the United States Marshal, the first man they look for and the last they want to meet. It's a chancey job, and it makes a man watchful and a little lonely.
Mr. Dillon! Mr. Dillon!
What is it, counselor?
Come on out here, man, I got something to show you.
Why couldn't you bring it in the office and show me?
Well, because the door ain't big enough.
What?
Lookie, I just bought me a new horse.
This?
Yes, sir. Here, take it. Oh, no, no, quit that.
He's kindly edgy. He ain't been ridden much the last couple months.
Is that so?
Sure. Crackly stole him, Mr. Dillon, the bargain I got him for.
I see.
I bought him off Moss Grimmick for $11. $11. And Moss paid $14 for him just last week to one of them Texas trail drivers. Guess I was kindly lucky to have kept Moss in his weak moment.
If you ask me, I'd say it was that trail driver who was lucky, Chester.
Are you talking about this, a good horse?
Well, he might be, if it wasn't bowed in both front legs, didn't have bad hocks, and wasn't wall-eyed, rooming nose, and probably wind-broke.
Wind-broke?
I'd say that horse is worth about $5, Chester. Only gamble, of course.
$5? Mr. Dillon, if that horse ain't worth $20, I'll eat him raw. And I'll tell you something else.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, Chester.
What's the matter?
Why the crowd looks like the stagecoach from Simran. Why ain't he stopping at the depot?
He's coming here, I guess. Must have had some trouble.
If they don't tell you no William, they're nothing is worth anything.
Marshall!
Yeah?
Marshall Dillon.
Yeah, what's wrong, Jess?
We got tied up, Marshall. A couple of three miles out of town.
One of the passengers inside there is hurt.
I'll take a look.
The fellow rode up alongside, mask over his face, fired point blank.
Good Lord.
What's the matter?
Give me a hand here, Chester.
That's Doc. He shot bad.
He's all right, man.
Let's put him down on the couch.
Easy now.
Matt, that's you.
He's coming too.
Now don't try to talk, Doc. You're going to be all right.
Chester, you'll see if you can find Kelly with you.
I'll get her over here right away.
Sorry, Doc. I'll go as easy as I can, but I've got to get this shirt and vest off of you.
I want to see what that bullet did.
It doesn't hurt much, has it? Just them weak, there's lots of blood.
You got any idea who did it?
No, mask over his face.
There we are.
Is it as bad as I think, Matt?
No, no, it is not too bad.
The bullet went in between the horse and the rib, the way I figure.
Yeah, I guess that's about it.
Hey, that sawbones from the east, is he still staying over at the Dodge house?
He left the same day you did, Doc. He took a train.
You're the only doctor within 100 miles of here.
That bullet's got to come out, man.
It's got to, right away. The blood poison was sending.
Yeah, I know.
It was such a good week, too, man. I had a good vacation.
I had a country down there just crawling with game, with prairie chicken, quail, pheasant.
A real fine vacation. It's the first one in two years.
You tell me about it later, Doc. You save your strength.
I might not be in here later, unless you hurry up and get that bullet out of there.
What?
There's nobody else. I trust Matt, and it's got to be done.
But, Doc, I can't.
You got to, Matt, unless your anchors are burying me.
But, Doc, I just can't.
All right, Doc, you betcha. You got to tell me what to do.
Now, just listen a minute.
If you will. I've got a little story to tell you.
Well, it's not so little. It's sort of a tall tale.
It's about John Darling. Maybe you've heard of him?
He used to be a boatman on the Erie Canal.
Moved west and became a farmer.
Well, old John Darling was a hard worker, he was.
Became a real champion farmer.
They tell about one time when John was re-shingling his barn.
A heavy fog rolled in, but that didn't slow him up at all.
No, sir, he kept hard at his shingling till noon.
Well, while he was having lunch, the sun came out,
and John discovered he'd laid the shingle roof forty feet above the rest of the barn.
Winters used to get pretty cold of that way,
but this one particular winter was the granddaddy of them all.
It got so cold that the air froze thick, and you had to push real hard to get through it.
Well, this heavy air wouldn't let the smoke out of John's fireplace chimney.
He found a solution, though. He whittled himself a paddle,
fixed an oar lock to the fireplace, and he pushed the smoke up the chimney.
He sat there by the hour rocking in his chair, paddled in the smoke and singing.
Everything worked real fine till one bad night when the smoke froze
into a ninety-six foot column straight up from the chimney.
It was too much for him to lift with the paddle,
and he just had to suffer through the rest of the winter as best he could.
It was kind of a joy, though, in the spring when things began to thaw out.
He had lots of entertainment listening to singing coming out of the melting smoke.
The songs he'd sung during the winter had frozen right into the smoke as it went up the chimney.
The fact of the matter was he got so interested listening to himself sing
that he tripped and broke a bottle of growing tonic he'd concocted.
This stuff was pretty powerful, and it soaked down into the ground where he'd planted wheat.
Next morning, John was one surprised gent when he stepped outside.
Yes, indeed. His wheat overnight had grown as high as his roof.
Hard to believe, isn't it?
Isn't it nice being citizens of a country where you can talk and laugh free as a breeze,
and write and read and worship, too?
Yes, sir. Maybe you don't think about it much, but you should.
Matt? Yeah, Doc?
You scrubbing your hands real good?
If I go much further, the bones are going to be showing.
You used plenty of that yellow soap? Yeah.
I got him, Mr. Dillon. Oh, thanks, Chester. How about Kitty?
Matt?
Doc, I'm sorry. How do you feel?
Terrible, Kitty.
I don't suppose you thought to bring a bottle around?
Well, knowing you, that's the first thing I thought of.
Kitty, I mean, Doc.
How much?
Well, half a glass for a start.
Doc, don't you think maybe you ought to take it kind of easy?
That stuff might not go too good with chloroform.
Chloroform?
A bullet's got to be cut out before it starts blood poisoning, Kitty.
Matt, you don't know anything about ophthalmology.
I'm not any happier about this than you are, but it's got to be done.
Kitty, will you please hand me that whiskey?
Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Here you are.
Oh, thank you.
Doc's going to tell me you have a move to make.
Hey, Doc, how are you going to tell me when you're unconscious?
Well, I wondered how long before you figured that out.
Kitty, fill that up again.
No, wait a minute, Doc. I'm...
Don't you worry about mixing whiskey and chloroform.
There's not going to be any chloroform.
Doc, I can't...
I can't tell you or not. That bullet, Matt, it's going to be tricky getting it out.
Doc, isn't there something I can do?
Yes, will you pour me that drink, please?
And Matt, you bring that bag of instruments over here.
Spread them out there on the table, and I'll show you what you're going to need.
Look, Doc, I don't...
Go on, now. Go on, now. You hurry up.
Kitty.
Here you are.
Thank you, Kitty.
Well, what are we going to need here, Doc?
Well, let me see now.
Let me see that turn over.
That... that thing there, it looks like... like blacksmith's nippers.
Oh, these?
Yes, that's right. They're forceps.
Yeah.
Now, and then those two things right there, you see, they're probes.
And then that hook probe, too, we'll need that to get hold of the bullet.
Yeah.
And then a couple of them, them little knife things right there, lancets.
I mean, these.
That's right. I guess that ought to do it.
You can just put the rest of the stuff away.
Yeah.
And Chester?
Yeah, Doc?
You bring that brown bottle off that shelf there, wouldn't it?
That's iodine.
Sure, Doc.
Kitty, I'll have another little drink there before you leave.
But, Doc...
Whatever he wants, Kitty. It's his party.
Yeah. I...
Here, Doc.
Oh, thank you, Kenneth.
I'll be back when you need me.
Oh, thank you, Kitty.
Good luck, Doc.
One more good, stiff drink like that, and I'll sing all the way through this thing.
That's more than I'll do.
Oh, now, man, I'm surprised you've put enough bullets into people.
You hadn't, out of mind, taken one out for a chance.
How much will that all help?
Hmm.
Man, I know how rough this is on you.
But, uh...
Hmm.
Yeah, now, here, let me get a good grip on the sides of this couch here.
Chester, I wonder if you could steady me a little bit here.
In bed. I got you.
Well...
Doc, I...
Forget it. Forget it.
Just hurry up and get on with it. Now, while I still got my nerve.
Now, then, man...
You listen, man. You listen close.
The very first thing you do...
Oh, how are you, Chester?
Oh, Mr. Dillon.
How's Doc?
Just about the same, I'm afraid. He's breathing pretty weak.
Yeah.
He ain't come too yet.
This kiddy's sitting with him for a while.
I'm getting worried, Mr. Dillon. It's been pretty long.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
I'm getting worried, Mr. Dillon. It's been pretty near 24 hours now.
Yeah, I know.
It just don't make sense. Doc never had an inmate in his whole life.
I know that.
Yeah, it couldn't have been somebody trying to rob the stage or they had to shop the driver.
No, it wasn't a holdup, Chester.
Say, look, maybe they mistook Doc for somebody else.
No. I thought of that too, but it just doesn't make sense.
The only other passenger was a salesman from the East, and he doesn't look anything like Doc,
and he doesn't know a soul in this part of the country.
No, it was Doc that the government was after.
But why? There ain't a person in this town that ain't beholden to Doc.
It seems like there's one who isn't.
First vacation Doc took in over two years and has to end up like this.
If Doc was to die, this town would be in a real...
Oh, forget it, Chester.
There's no use jumping at things.
Long as I live, I won't never forget Doc laying there, gritting his teeth, turning white,
and still trying to grin while you dug that bullet out of him.
Whoever done that must have been crazy.
I thought of that too.
Or maybe a stranger in town who didn't know Doc, but that still doesn't help.
Come in.
Anything I can do for you?
You sure can, Marshal.
You can get your hands up.
You too.
Well, I'll take that gun of yours, Marshal.
There. That's better.
What's on your mind, mister?
You've been talking all over town,
telling what you was going to do with that fellow that shot that doctor.
Well, Marshal, you're looking at him.
One of our 50 states owes more to its spirit of religious tolerance and freedom of belief
than to any other factor.
The state, of course, is Utah,
and the settling of Brigham Young and his followers in the Beehive State
shaped its future more than any prior event.
The Mormons taught those who dwelled in the arid region that is now Salt Lake City
the miracles of irrigation and the area flourished and prospered.
The lasting influence of the Mormons is evident in the state's agricultural prosperity.
And visitors to the Temple of Queens, the Rainbow Natural Bridge,
the copper mines at Bingham, the sheep ranches of Duquesne,
or the richly colored sandstone Navajo Twins and Needle Rocks
see what the first Mormon saw over a hundred years ago,
that Utah is the promised land.
All right, you got my gun, mister. You mind if I put my hands down now?
Just don't, neither one of you try nothing, that's all.
What's your name?
What difference it make?
I'd kind of like to know who's pointing a gun at me.
The name's Bricker, Hod Bricker.
You're new in Dodge, aren't you?
You've been here a couple of months.
We?
You ask too many questions, Marshal.
I'm going to ask one more. Why did you shoot Doc?
Because he had it coming, that's why. And if he...
Hold it there.
Take it easy, Chester.
Well, I was just shifting my feet around.
You two know what's good for you. You won't know more than breathe.
What did Doc do to you, Bricker?
Plenty.
Something bad enough that you wanted to kill him?
Ten times over.
Doc never hurt nobody in his whole life.
You shut up?
That's what the Marshal's been saying all over town.
That that doctor never done nobody any harm.
That whoever shot him was a dirty skunk and hanging was too good for him.
And you don't agree with that, huh?
I said he had it coming, didn't I?
And I had plenty of reason.
Is that why you came here, to tell me about your reason?
I just wanted you to know, that's all.
But you try to make a move, and I'll shoot you, Marshal.
I didn't come here to, but I will if I have to.
Yeah, you said that.
All right, Bricker, what about your reason?
What did Doc do to you?
He...he killed my youngin.
That's a godang lie.
Shut up! And stay back there.
Like he says, Chester.
Six years old.
Our only youngin.
And he killed her just as sure as if he had pointed a gun at her head.
But he didn't point a gun at her, did he?
It was just the same as.
She was took sick, sudden, like, with the chokes.
And I come for the doctor.
And he was gone out of town on a hunting trip.
The only doctor here, and he was gone.
He's got no right to, when he's the only doctor in town.
That was the only vacation Doc's had in over two years.
When there wasn't nothing we could do for her.
I sat with her for two days and two nights,
watching her fight for her breath, all the time getting weaker.
And finally, she died.
And therefore yesterday I buried her.
So you got a gun and went after Doc.
I heard he was coming back to town yesterday,
so I rode out and met the stage and shot him.
And he had it coming.
You figure killing Doc and bring your daughter back?
What if he had been here like he ought to, she'd still be alive?
Maybe, and maybe he couldn't have saved her anyway.
He oughta been here.
You shut up and listen to me.
I've seen Doc work 72 hours straight without sleep during epidemics.
There's a whole lot of people walking around Dodge today
who wouldn't be if it weren't for Doc,
and some of them are youngins the same as yours.
Doc would have been the sorriest man in town if he'd known about your daughter,
but he didn't know.
Because of something he didn't even know, you lost your...
lost your head.
And you went out like a mad dog and you shot him down.
And now you're sorry about it.
What are you talking about?
That's what it is, isn't it?
You come to your senses now, that's why you come in here to give yourself up, isn't it?
I told you...
I know what you told me, but that wasn't your reason for coming, was it?
Now you hand over that gun, Bricker.
You stay back. I'll kill you.
You won't pull that trigger, and we both know it.
You hand over that gun.
Thanks.
That doctor...
Is he... is he dead?
He's the next thing to it.
I hope he don't die.
You better hope.
Now, that chest will lock him up.
Come on, mister.
Matt?
No?
Matt?
What?
What is it, Katie?
Matt, I... I think Doc's going to be all right.
He's awake, and he's mean, growling.
That's a good sign.
He says if he's not out of bed in three days, you'll probably take over his practice.
Now that you've had a try, it...
You know something, Katie?
No. What, Matt?
I think I'm going to send that miserable old goat a bill.
I don't know.
Gun Smoke.
Produced and directed by Norman MacDonald, stars William Conrad as Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshal.
The music was composed and conducted by Rex Corey.
Sound patterns were composed by Ray Kemper and Bill James.
Featured in the cast were Parley Bear as Chester, Howard McNear as Doc, and Georgia Ellis as Kitty.
George Waltz speaking.
Join us again next week for another story of the Western frontier of America in the 1870s on Gun Smoke.
This is the United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.
The United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.