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 violent 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, couldn't we stop a little while?
Well, if we're going to get to Dodge before dark, we've got to keep moving, Chester.
Yeah, but I swear I'm about to bust.
What did you expect after the way you ate dinner?
I just couldn't help it. Every time I eat with a cow, I make a fool of myself. The ration in those fellows' drawers is really something, isn't it?
Hey, Chester, look over there in that drawer.
Why, it's Indian, isn't it? Is he dead or what?
Let's go see.
Yeah, he's dead, all right. And that was an ugly death, too.
My goodness, shot him both knees.
Yeah, looks like he was trying to crawl away when he got finished off.
Who in the world would do a thing like that?
Whoever it was, he must have been full of hate.
Mr. Dillon?
What?
There's a squaw watching us. Are we going to be them trees, see it?
Yeah, I see her.
You reckon she's his?
Yeah, she might be. They're both Pawnee.
She's coming over here. Say, she don't think we've done this, does she?
I don't know.
I sure hope not.
If I could speak Pawnee, I'd tell her.
I understand white man talk.
Uh, is this your husband?
Yes.
Huh? I'm Matt Dillon. I'm a U.S. law marshal.
Law much true.
You know who killed your husband?
No.
You know why your husband was killed?
No. Husband good, much heart, big, strong.
Uh, I will help you bury him.
No. Indian bury husband.
Oh. All right. We'll go.
Come on, Chester.
They just don't seem right, leaving her there all by herself, Mr. Dillon.
That's the way she wants it, Chester.
Well, let's get on back to the dock.
Well, hello, Matt.
How about Kitty?
How was the trip?
Oh, it was all right, I guess.
You don't sound very enthusiastic.
Have a beer and tell me all about it.
No, no thanks, Kitty.
I'm going to go pick up my laundry, then I'm going to go get some sleep.
Evening, Kitty.
Matt.
Hello, Doc.
Doc.
Well, I just treated Chester for an attack of indigestion.
How are you feeling?
Oh, fine.
Well, that's not true, Doc. Something's bothering him.
Oh? I see. What's the trouble, Matt?
I'll tell you what's the trouble, Doc. Disgust for my fellow man.
But I guess I'll get over it.
What happened, Matt?
Well, on the way in today, Chester and I found a dead Indian.
His squaw came along about the same time.
It was rough to watch, that's all.
Well, Matt, men die all the time, and they're women grieve.
Well, not like this, Doc. He was killed a piece at a time.
Somebody had shot him on both knees so he'd crawl.
It wasn't until they'd had their fun that they finished him off.
His squaw can see what had happened to him, so they didn't...
Be quiet. I'm listening to a funny story.
Hey, you.
Is it my funny story you're listening to?
Yeah, that's right. Any objections?
You have some particular interest in Indians?
I have.
Go on with the story. It's good. How does it end?
It hasn't ended yet.
I could end it for you.
If it was me out there, that squaw would have went right along with a man.
That's so.
I hate Indians. I kill them.
That's mighty near all I got on my mind. I enjoy killing them.
I hate squaw men, too.
You...
All right, get your hand away from that gun.
You, uh... you wearing some kind of badge there under that vest?
That's right. From the U.S., Marshal.
And you figure that gives you a right to tell me who I can hate?
No. That's your business. But what you do about it is mine.
Well, I'm gonna go on killing Indians is what I'm gonna do about it, Marshal.
Like I've been doing for 16 years.
And you've got a lot to answer for, mister. That's a long time.
It seems like no more than yesterday.
I come back from hunting one time.
I found my wagon burnt.
My wife with her pretty back stuck full of arrows.
My baby son carried off.
They was Pawnees.
Hey, Marshal, your little badge ain't gonna change that.
That's between me and the Indians. I'm gonna kill them till the day I die.
Edgar, leave me alone!
What a terrible thing.
What Matt saw was terrible, too, Kenny.
Yeah.
16 years of that kind of hate's long enough, isn't it, Doc?
Much too long.
Mr. Dillon?
Yeah.
Mr. Dillon?
That squaw is here.
What? Here in Dutch?
Yes, sir. She come over to the office. She wants to talk to you.
Oh, where is she now?
Well, there was another Indian with her there, waiting out near the edge of town.
All right, let's go.
Hello, this is Marvin Miller with another page from your American heritage scrapbook.
The majestic Hudson River, which has cut such a wide path through American fact and fiction,
was apparently first discovered by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine navigator, on April 17, 1524.
But the man for whom it was named, Henry Hudson, made the first conclusive exploration of the river
during the months of September and October of 1609.
Henry Hudson, hoping to find a waterway through North America to the East Indies,
sailed his ship, the Half Moon, up the Hudson as far as present-day Troy, New York.
In the 1620s, Dutch Patroons had established a permanent colony, New Netherlands,
along the banks of the Hudson, and New Amsterdam was spreading out from the southern tip of Manhattan Island.
It was in 1664 that an English invasion force entered the deep-channeled mouth of the Hudson River
and took over control of New Amsterdam from the Dutch.
They renamed the city New York.
Ships flying the Union Jack cruised the Hudson for more than a century,
bringing furs and food supplies to cosmopolitan New York.
Control of the Hudson became imperative during the colonial revolution for independence.
The British attacked and captured Fort Washington and Fort Lee late in 1776,
but their attempt to cut the jugular vein that united New England and the Middle Colonies was unsuccessful.
Colonial Independence I, peace reigned again over the river Henry Hudson once described as the Great River of the Mountains.
Yes, running 306 miles from the summit of Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks to the widespreading harbor of New York City,
the Hudson River became the lifeline of a new nation just beginning to explore and develop its natural riches.
I don't see them, Chester.
Me neither.
You sure this is the right place?
Well, I think so, Mr. Dillon. I couldn't understand her too good.
Maybe they changed their minds and left.
That's not very likely.
Must have had something pretty important to say to come all the way into town like that.
I sure must have.
Ah, there she is, moving out into the clearing.
Yeah, but she's alone now. Where is that other man?
We'll probably find out.
What's she doing? We'd better be careful. I don't like this.
You want to wait here?
No, no, I'm coming.
We talk.
You come alone now. My friend says that there was another Indian.
He, back there, he, little white wolf, brother, he no make talk. He wait.
Is that the one, Chester?
I think so. He never come near enough for me to get a real good look at him.
Any other Indians here?
No other. Three. All go, leave village, make new house, Oklahoma.
All right, we talk now.
White man kill husband. White man go to city.
How do you know this?
Brother, he's gone. See one, only white man.
Then go find husband dead. Brother track white man. Go to city.
Who is white man?
He wear black hat, spot a shirt. He ride black horse.
Why, I seen the-
Wait a minute, wait a minute, Chester. There are many men like that in the city.
You got to say more than that.
You find, you make prisoner, you kill.
Now listen, the law must know and it must know good.
Did your brother see the white man kill your husband?
Brother, he's gone. Then see one, only white man.
Yeah, but the brother did not see. Maybe the white man did not kill.
Now the law must know. It must be certain. You understand that?
Law not certain, then law not kill white man?
That's right.
Then you give us white man, we kill.
No.
Brother not have two hearts. Brother certain, we kill.
No, that's much bad.
Now, you go to Oklahoma, you make new house.
White man big enemy. We no make peace. We wait, we kill.
Well, that's sad.
Reckon she mean it?
Yeah, she means it all right. They'll get him.
Haggard, I want to talk to you.
Come on in.
I tried to find you last night.
I ain't been hiding much.
I know. It was late when I got back to town. Nobody knew where you were staying.
I went out to talk to some Indians.
You seem mighty fond of Indians.
I'm fond of the law, Haggard.
Now tell me, did you kill that Pawnee?
I killed lots of Pawnees in the last 16 years.
That's not what I'm asking you. Did you kill that one yesterday?
Suppose not dead. What would you do about him?
I'd hang him.
For killing an Indian? Might as well hang a man for squashing worms.
Days passed, Haggard. Now the Indians think you killed him and so do I.
I reckon you'll have to prove it, Marshal.
There's an Indian who can identify you. The Squaw's brothers saw you do it.
That ain't exactly true.
No?
No, because if it was, you'd have me in jail right now. You ain't got no proof.
The Indian heard your last shot and he saw you right off. He tracked you here to dud.
Don't put no rope around my neck.
Not legally, no. But the Indians know that you did it.
And I don't want to have to hang those Indians.
And what do you mean by that?
I'll tell you what I mean by that. They're waiting for you, Haggard.
They're what?
That's right. So you stay in this town. You set one foot outside of Dodge City and those two Pawnees will kill you.
Don't be sure of that, Marshal. Don't be sure of it at all.
Music
This is Myron J. Bennett, back again with another little-known item of American military history.
When you're up there in the wild blue yonder, either shooting or getting shot at,
there's not much time for making famous remarks.
Perhaps that's why there aren't too many on record for the Air Force,
although our youngest branch of the armed forces has got a big piece of the action in our recent wars.
It started out on August 1, 1907, with only one officer and two enlisted men,
and didn't get its first airplane until a year later.
Under the Signal Corps, aces made history in the dogfights of World War I.
But it wasn't until General William Billy Mitchell got himself court-martialed for backing up his statement
that nothing can stop the attack of aircraft except other aircraft that the air arm really got going.
In World War II, General Henry H. Hap Arnold built the Army Air Corps into the greatest military armada ever seen,
with his three-legged stool formula of pilots, planes, and airfields, and the slogan, Keep Them Flying.
And in the Cold War that's been going on ever since, the now independent Air Force,
with its ever-ready Strategic Air Command, carries the biggest stick we've got behind its soft-spoken motto,
Peace is our profession.
Music
You got time for a cup of coffee, Matt?
Yeah, I reckon so, Kitty.
There you are.
Hi, can we have some coffee? Right away, Miss Kitty.
Where'd you run off to last night, Matt?
To that Pawnee school. I wanted to see me, Kitty.
Oh?
Yeah, she and her brother know who killed her husband, and they came to me for help.
I get them to believe in the law, Matt. That's good.
Yeah, it'd be fine if the law could do anything about it.
Eh, your coffee.
What do you mean, Matt?
It's all legal proof, so the Indians are gonna do it in their own way.
Who was it?
Egert.
That man who lost his wife and baby?
Yeah. I was up to see him this morning. He's the one, all right.
Mr. John, I've been looking high and low for you.
What's the matter?
Well, you gave that Egert orders to stay in town, didn't you?
Yeah, that's right.
Well, he didn't do it. He left about a half hour ago.
Yeah, I should have known he would. All right, come on, Chester. Maybe we can catch him.
Yeah, let's go.
Seems like we ought to have caught up with him by now, Mr. John.
Yeah.
Maybe the Indians got him already.
I thought it, Chester. I think they'd get him behind him and trail him until they could set up an ambush.
Well, that's a pretty good spot for a fight right here.
Wait a minute.
There's a squaw over there in those trees.
Yeah, she's riding up that little guy.
Come on.
She's turning.
Why'd you jump down?
I'll get her. You catch the horse.
Yes, sir.
Hey, stop. Come here.
Now, where's your brother?
Come on, talk. Where's little white wolf?
You see white man who killed your husband?
Mr. John!
Yeah, over here, Chester.
I got her horse.
What'd she say?
Nothing.
Nothing?
No, not a word.
Look, brother killed white man, he break the law. Now, the law will punish him. Do you understand that?
Now, where is your brother?
All right, come on.
That's where I don't understand what you're going to do.
I do, Chester. She waited on the trail as a decoy and deliberately led us away to give her brother time.
Right now, that end in an acreage are stalking each other somewhere in that bush.
Hey, that was a rifle.
White man, big enemy.
We kill now.
Little white wolf avenged husband.
Where'd it come from, Chester? Could you tell?
From that blocky under it sounded like.
All right, let's get over there. Maybe we still have time to stop them.
Haggard! Haggard!
Maybe that Indian got him, Mr. John.
Haggard!
Here, Marshal.
I got me another Pawnee.
He got me too.
Where is he, Haggard?
Right in the rock.
Yeah.
Yeah, here he is, Chester.
He's shot.
He's shot right through the head.
He's much more than a boy.
He's Mr. John.
Yeah.
Little white wolf.
He's dead.
Little white wolf wasn't your brother.
Not your true brother, was he?
No.
True brother, dying baby.
Chief give mother white baby.
Call him little white wolf.
He grow up fine Indian.
He good brother.
White men die?
Yeah, he'll die very soon.
I'll go.
Marshal?
Yeah, Haggard.
Did I kill him?
No, you killed him.
That's good.
You were just a kid, about 18.
I'm glad.
That's just about right.
By now my own son would have been just about 18.
Mr. John, did you tell him?
No, Chester, I didn't tell him.
Well, at least we can bury him together.
Gun Smoke.
Produced and directed by Norman McDonald, stars William Conrad as Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshal.
The script was specially written for Gun Smoke by Les Crutchfield, with editorial supervision by John Meston.
The music was composed and conducted by Rex Corey.
Sound patterns were by Ray Kemper and Bill James.
Featured in the cast were Parley Bayer as Chester, Howard McNeer 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.
Thank you.