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, presented by Army in Europe Magazine, a monthly feature magazine for the use of a soldier and civilian.
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.
Hello, Chessu.
Well, I was just a minute coming over to the office, Mr. Dillon, and I had me a little glass of beer.
Oh, well, that sounds like a pretty good idea. What will you have? Can I have a beer, please? Sure, Marshal.
What's the matter with Kitty over there? Isn't she speaking to us this evening?
Well, she ain't speaking to nobody, hardly.
Here you are.
She's been sitting there with her nose in that book ever since I came in here.
A book? Kitty? We'll have to look into this.
I'll get to the end of it.
Hello, Kitty.
Hello, Matt, Chessu.
Kitty? Sit down.
Thank you.
I didn't see you come in.
You were too wrapped up in that thing there.
It's not a thing. It's a book of poetry.
Poetry?
Sure. That young Boston fellow that came through last week left it here.
No?
I never knew words could be so beautiful, Matt.
Here, listen to this.
Here are cool mosses deep, and through the moss they ivy's creep.
And in its dreams the long leaves flowers weep, and from the craggy ledge the poppy came to sleep.
Oh, when it sounds so nice and skinny.
That's quite a place he's describing, Kitty. Wherever it is.
Well, it's sure enough, God's city.
Well, you could leave, you know, and find someplace like that poem about.
Oh, I won't. You know that. I don't even try anymore.
Marshall, Sam like it's wuffing his wife again, so it won't fool her right out here.
All right. I'll be back with that beer in a minute, Kitty.
Sure.
I aim to beat some sense into you if I have to break every bone in your body.
Oh, Sam, please.
All right, lack of that from up.
You just stay out of this, Marshall.
What's between a man and his woman ain't nothing for the law to poke into.
Marshall.
She'd stay home like she ought to do. She wouldn't have no complaints.
I don't aim to have you lose all the egg money on gambling and drinks.
Shut up, or I'll belt your teeth out of your head.
Don't hit her again.
I've already told you, Marshall, it ain't none of the law's business.
Well, a few days in jail might change your mind about that.
Jail? To jail a man just for keeping order in his own household?
I'll jail any man for beating a woman.
You can't jail me.
I can if she signs a complaint.
Oh, no, Marshall, I wouldn't do nothing like that.
You just let me catch you signing a complaint.
Ms. Lackett, this isn't the first time he's hit you, and it more than likely won't be the last, unless he learns that he can't get away with it.
No, no, I wouldn't want to sign no complaint.
Six months ago, when Doc set those broken fingers for you, didn't Sam do that?
She's a liar if she says so.
No, it was a gait on the corral. One of the calves was trying to get out.
Oh, now you told Doc you'd dropped a piece of stove wood on it.
Well, I don't remember.
Well, what you'd better remember is where you left the wagon. Go get it. Get back out the place. I'll have more to say to you later.
All right, Sam, I'm going.
Ms. Lackett, you know, you don't have to put up with any more of this. Now, if you want to sign a complaint, I'll see that you're protected.
No, no, Marshall, it's all right. I'll go.
Well, maybe that'll earn you nothing but into a man's personal affairs more than...
I'll butt in if you hit her again. I'm warning you.
I was hoping you'd flatten him, Mac.
I was too, Mr. John.
Can I get me a glass of rye, Barhanda?
Sure, sure, Marshall.
Poor little gal.
Matt, do you remember Hester when she first came here from the East?
Yeah.
Some of the girls helped me, and we made her a wedding dress out of some linen tablecloth, all white.
Pretty as a picture.
She shouldn't be very pretty now, after what he's been through, you know.
Well, Sam's had a lot of bad luck, Hester. Two years of crop failure, lost most of his hair from black water fever.
Is that her fault?
No, but it makes a man kind of short-tempered.
Those two are heading for something bad, Matt. I'll give you odds. Don't worry.
No kidding. I won't take that bet.
All right, Matt. Breathe in now.
You mean just like this, huh?
More, deeper.
All right now. Breathe out. Slow. That's fine, Matt. Now once more. That's good. Now breathe out. Fine, fine, fine.
Well, you didn't put your shirt back on now, Matt.
All right, Doc.
You mean to tell me that you can really tell something about a man's health just by listening to him through that, whatever you call it?
That is called a stethoscope. Of course I can tell. Why else would I be doing it?
Just to impress people, maybe I wouldn't put it past.
Impress who? An ignorant lout that's got no better sense than to go out in there and get a bullet through his lung?
I didn't do it on purpose, Doc. Besides, it's all healed up, huh?
Oh, healed up. In that rawhide caucus of yours, of course it's healed up.
Oh, that's good.
You know, Matt, until I came to Dodge City, I had no conception of what the human body could endure.
By during the war, I've seen men die with wounds that you wouldn't even go to bed with.
I always figured they can't bury you as long as you're on your feet, Doc.
Doc?
What? Why, Mrs. Lackett?
Doc, I...
Doc, she's been beaten half to death.
Oh, that's about all I can do for her right now, Matt.
Her nose is broken, and that one rib, and her eyes... I just don't know.
Hirsty.
I'm going to go get her.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Hirsty.
You feel like telling me what happened, ma'am?
I don't know, Marshall.
Nothing, I guess.
Mrs. Lackett, I wouldn't call it nothing when you were hurt so bad that you could hardly crawl up those stairs.
It don't matter.
Nothing does, does it?
Now, how did it happen?
I don't remember, Marshall. I just don't remember.
It was Sam, wasn't it?
No.
No, I fell off the wagon.
Oh, no, this didn't happen from a fall. You may as well tell me, Mrs. Lackett, I'm going to find out one way or the other. Now, wasn't it Sam?
He'd kill me for telling me. He said he would.
He won't hurt you. I'll see to that.
I thought he was gone tonight. It seems like he just keeps getting more mean and cruel. Tonight I know he'd really killed me if I hadn't gotten away.
He's not going to kill anybody. Look, you just sign the complaint and I'll take care of him.
It was just all so different when we got married, him and the way the world looked. Everything was different.
Mrs. Laird, maybe that's enough talking for now.
I used to think back on it lots of times, laying awake at night, listening to the coyotes across the prairie.
I don't do that much no more, but I used to, like when we were first married, you were so kind and gentle.
He'd tell me I was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen in his whole life.
Mrs. Lackett.
He'd want me to put on my good dress and when we'd sit in the porch in the evening and wear my brooch with a pearl, he'd pin it on me himself.
And he would always laugh because he was so clumsy and he couldn't.
That's what it was about tonight, Marshall.
He wanted that brooch to bring into town and sale, but I wouldn't tell him where it was.
What is it that changes people that start out good and wakes them and turns them bad?
I don't know, man. It's time, maybe, or maybe it's the prairie.
The prairie. I hate it.
Will you sign the complaint, Mrs. Lackett?
Yes, I will, Marshall.
All right, all right, everybody, quiet down. Course is session.
I don't have much time. I wrote in yesterday, right out again tonight.
So it don't matter whether you got business with this court or if you just come in off the street to loaf as long as you're here, you got to show proper respect so we can get on with the cases.
And let's see now.
Here's the first thing we got here is a case of wife-beaten Sam Lackett.
We're living here in the salmon court.
Yes, sir, he is, Ron. I just brought him over from the jail.
I ain't done nothing, Judge.
Sam, he'll get you a chance to speak your piece, and what I hear about you, you're overdoing court anyhow.
Is Marshall Dillon here?
Yes, sir, where's Matt?
Well, I don't know, sir. I figured he'd be here, but now...
So we can't start a test without him.
Well, seeing him and Doc was going to bring Miss Lackett providing she felt up to it. According to Doc, she's, she's got to lose the sight in one of her eyes.
Oh, it's a lie. She's just putting on, trying to make it hard on me.
Sam, I'll tell you right now, I don't like wife-beaten. If you get me mad, I'll find some legal loophole to hang you.
I ain't done nothing.
I'm sorry to be late, your honor.
All right, Matt. Doc wasn't too sure Miss Lackett was in any condition to come here, but she insisted that she was.
She ought to be in bed.
He's going to tell you a bunch of lies.
All right, all right, let's get on with it then.
We'll just complain here, and then we'll see what's got to go on.
There's a complaint charging...
Your honor, sir. Please, sir, could I say something?
Well, it ain't quite in order, but I guess it's all right. What is it, Miss Lackett?
Well, it's about that complaint, your honor. I want to take it back.
I don't know what I was thinking when I signed it, but there ain't no truth in it, Judge. I fell. That's how I got hurt.
Yeah. I told you that complaint was a pack of lies, didn't I?
Well, Marsha.
She's afraid of him, your honor. She's scared to go through with it.
You're sure this is what you want to do, Miss Lackett?
Yes, sir. I'm sure.
It seems a shame to let a white beat and scoundrel like him get off scot-free just by intimidating the witness.
Now, if there was only some other charge, like resisting arrest or shooting off firearms...
He did resist arrest, your honor. Richard don't have to slap him flat.
Well, in that case, Sam, $50 for 50 days.
Well, you ain't got $50, and you know it. And that's a dirty, crooked way of running things.
Here's your prisoner, Matt.
Yes, your honor. All right, come on, Sam. I got a big stack of firewood over at the jail just waiting to be cut.
It's not locked. Come on in.
Good morning, Marsha.
Oh, how are you, Miss Lackett? Here, take your chair, huh?
Thank you kindly. Come on in, Chester.
I feel man. Well, kind of old somehow, Chester.
Old? You must be all at 25, I guess.
Well, it ain't the years that make you old, Marsha. I didn't come to talk about that, though.
You shouldn't be here at all, Miss Lackett. I told you to stay in bed for another week at least, didn't I?
Well, I just couldn't get used to it, Marsha. It didn't seem proper.
Well, you want to talk to Sam, huh?
How's he taken to it, Marsha?
Mean? Maybe we can work some of that out of him by the time his 50 days are up.
Well, now, the way I recollect it, the judge said $50 or 50 days.
Yeah, that's right.
And that if the fine was to be paid up, you'd turn him loose.
Well, yeah, $41 is the stance now. He's been here nine days, but I doubt anybody's going to pay me more.
I want to pay his fine, Marsha.
What?
I got the money. I told my brooch to one of the girls at the long branch. Here, see?
Yes, I see. But Miss Lackett, he put in there and killed you a couple weeks ago. Next time he might just do it.
No, Chester, he won't. There you are, Marsha. $41.
Well, now I go get him, won't I, Chester?
Yes, sir, but Miss Lackett, why are you doing this?
First withdrawing your complaint in court and now paying his fine and getting him out. Why?
I don't know exactly, at least not how to put it in words.
I've been trying to think things out for the last two weeks. My life and how it's wasted and what's become of me and all of it.
Well, you'll get over this in time.
No, Marsha, you'll get beat just so many times and you get over it. Then there's one finally you don't get over, because there ain't nothing left of you.
Chester, what do you think you're doing here? Come around the gloat, did you?
No, sir.
You just paid your fines, Sam. You're being released.
Ah, so you finally come to your senses.
That's right, Sam.
And you, Marsha, maybe this will learn you not to interfere between the man and his wife from now on.
I don't call a wife, Peter, a man.
Ain't you done no thinking, Sam? Ain't you even sorry at all for what you've done to me?
You better keep your mouth shut if you know it's good for you.
What I've done ain't nothing to what'll happen to you if you try lawing again and again.
You'd beat me. Is that what you're saying?
I'll beat you a plenty, you don't stand lying. I might just throw you clean off the brace.
I can't see no reason keeping somebody as ugly and broken up as you.
Then it's still the same. And it'll go on being you ain't changed one bit.
You really think you would, Marsha?
I just hoped that was all, Marsha, the last little piece of hope I had.
Sam, come over here by the window.
Why?
I brought you a present. I got it wrapped up in here.
What'd you do? Find a cell that broke yours?
I let you off in court, Sam. But I guess you're kind of back in court now.
Charged with killing a woman. Your wife. How do you plead, Sam?
I don't know what you're talking about.
How do you plead?
I'll plead you when I get you out of the place.
No, you won't. And if you won't answer the charge, or even say you're sorry or promise to do better, then the court's going to decide for you.
That's like it. Don't do it.
You're guilty, Sam. That's the way the court decides. Guilty.
There's the gun, Marsha. I reckon you'll want it for evidence.
Gun Smoke
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 Brutchfield, 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 McGeer 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