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 a 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, United States Marshal, the first man they look for and the last they want to meet. It's a chancy job, and it makes a man watchful and a little lonely.
The town sure does seem deserted tonight, Mr. Dillon.
It's pretty late, Chester.
Well, it won't be like this much longer. At the end of the month, the coal herd will start rolling in and there won't be no peace around here for us all.
You're a hard man to please.
Why, I ain't complaining. It's kind of nice to have some life and excitement. Are you, Marshal?
You remember me?
Yeah, sure, I remember you, Elvin. You've grown some.
Sure.
I've had two years to do it.
Uh-huh. Put on any sense, have you, along with the wits?
Enough so I'm still not in jail.
I gave you a year, didn't I? Said you'd either be jailed or hung by then.
I sure hate to disappoint you, Marshal.
Chester, you remember Elvin, grabbin' at you?
Yes, sir, I do. And I still got no use for him.
You men sure ain't very friendly.
What are your plans, Elvin?
Nothing much. Just got a hankering to see the old hometown.
Your ma and Billy are getting along fine without you. Why don't you leave them alone?
I figured they might need some help, maybe.
You didn't figure it when you lived here, and you haven't worried about them for the last two years.
Now, Marshal!
You shut up and listen to me. Two years ago, after I let you get away with everything but murder just for your ma's sake, I finally ran you out of town, and I told you not to come back.
Yeah, I remember.
All right. You are back. By this time, you don't get any second chances. You make one wrong move, and I'm on you, Elvin.
A man can change, Marshal.
Some can and some can't. I'm just telling you how you stand and dodge.
Just go on and look down there.
What?
Marshal, a couple of fellas right now behind the bank there.
What?
Look, Marshal.
So that's why you've been so talkative, huh? You're the lookout.
Lookout? Now, Marshal, I'm outside the river.
Hey, Griff, come back here. You're under arrest.
Not yet, Marshal. Now, while I got a gun in my holster...
You'll be a fool, Griff.
Look out!
Elvin's dead, Chester.
We gotta go after him, too.
Nah, it's too dark. Now we couldn't track him tonight.
Matt!
That you, Matt?
Yeah, over here, Tuck.
What happened, Matt?
Take over, will you, Tuck?
Sure.
Let's see, I...
What?
Why, it's young Elvin Griff.
Yeah.
I didn't even know he was around this part of the country.
Ali's come home now, Tuck.
Just stay.
This dog on the land is just plain bone-starved, Mr. Dillon.
Pretty poor ground, all right.
I don't see how nobody could make a living off a homestead like this.
That takes some scratching, I guess, especially with just her and Billy that do the work.
It's the same as grab over the crowd.
Yeah.
Bet she's already hit.
Things like me, I'm a little bit of a wimp.
I'm a little bit of a wimp.
I'm a little bit of a wimp.
I'm a little bit of a wimp.
Bet she's already hit.
Things like me, we could have took time for some breakfast while we rode way out here.
And I wanted to tell her before somebody else did, sir.
Hey, get in the gate! Get on there!
Let's give her a hand, huh? Those calves are getting away from her.
Circle those over there by the barn and I'll pick up these along the fence here.
Ah, ha! Ah!
Hold down, David. I'll go and pull you up for you.
I'll be back in a minute.
There you go!
All right, that's good enough, Chester. The rest have no follow.
Yes, sir!
Get in, you! Get in!
Get the gate closed! Get closed!
Here, let go!
Those dogs and those calves have left the driver body clean out of their mind.
There.
Aren't you bright, D. Marshall. Chester?
That's no problem, man.
Well, come on up to help, Marshall. I'll get on a pot of coffee.
Oh, thank you.
Why didn't you get Billy out here to give you a hand?
Billy? And he ain't the reason you're here?
Why should he be?
I'm worried sick, Marshall.
He acted real funny all day yesterday.
Then this morning he sat it up and took off for dawn.
I heard him ride out of the yard first, I know, David.
I see.
And when? What he's up to?
He acted mighty strange like last night.
He wouldn't look me in the eye.
That ain't like him, Marshall.
Billy ain't like Elvin.
Pray to Lord he don't never get like him.
Elvin came back yesterday, Miss Grubbin.
What?
He was around town last night.
Then Billy's seen him.
That's why he was acting the way he was.
Yeah, maybe.
I hope he'd never come back.
Even if he is my own son.
He'll work on Billy now.
He'll get him started down the same road he's on.
Miss Grubbin.
Elvin's dead.
Dead?
Yes, and he and two other men broke into the cattleman's bank last night.
When I started to arrest him, he grew and fired at me.
Dead?
Elvin.
I think I'll be a step down.
Here, ma'am, sit on this chair.
You know, I remember the winter he was four, and he caught the pox.
I took care of him night and day for a whole week.
I think in any hour we was going to lose him.
Might have been better if we had.
I'm sorry, Miss Grubbin.
Oh, I knowed for three, four years it was going to end this way, Marshall.
I wish there'd been some way to avoid it.
What did I do wrong, Marshall?
Back along the years, someplace that made him turn bad?
A person never knows, I guess.
They'd best do the best they can.
I've got to know.
I've got Billy to think of.
Do you think he knew, Miss Grubbin, about Elvin being killed?
Not when he left this morning.
He couldn't have. He was home all night.
Nobody's been here.
He was probably meeting the three of them somewhere.
Hideout, maybe.
Yeah, I reckon so.
There's a hand missing from some other vitals.
What can I do, Marshall?
Billy just can't go bad.
Well, at least Elvin won't be a wrong influence on him.
Not now, anyway.
You really think that, Marshall?
I ain't so sure.
Well, I think you're right.
What's the matter?
I've got to know.
I've got to know.
I have to know.
I've got to know.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
He left them behind a building and tried to shoot you in the back.
They don't have much reason to do that.
He killed Elvin Baeb.
He was in with them.
Revenge is a reason.
Yeah, it is sometimes.
I just hope maybe they left the country.
I doubt if they have, Kitty.
I think they're a holdup somewhere around Dodge.
Matt, I don't see how you can be so calm about it.
I'm not calm, Kitty.
Not till I find Billy Gribb.
If you find him, you'll find him off.
I hope so.
But you know he's joined up with him.
Yeah, he's probably right.
Mr. Dillon?
Here you are.
What's the matter, Chester?
Billy Grimm. Did he come in here just now?
I don't know.
I had a score. I just seen him out in the street.
Some kid that sure looked like him anyhow, and he was heading right in here.
Matt, behind Chester.
What?
Good evening, Billy.
You dirty, rotten killer!
Your brother chose the way I did.
You know what he was up against.
Now you better put that gun away.
Sure will.
After I've gifted it in you.
Oh?
Billy, I'll give a kid more chances than I would a man, but not enough to get myself killed.
Now you hand over that gun.
Stay back, morsel. I ain't fooling.
Did the gang give you the gun that they send you in to do their dirty work for them?
Stop! Don't come no closer!
I'm not putting up with any more foolishness, Billy.
Now you give me that gun before I throw you over my knee and take a flat on my hand to you.
No!
I said hand that over!
No! No!
No!
Thanks.
I'll kill you! So help me, I'll kill you!
Chester.
Yes, sir.
Take him over and lock him up.
I'll get you.
Come on, now, Billy.
You're killing.
You wait and see how many more I think you'll kill.
What?
We took a big chance, Matt.
A crazy kid like that's worth more than a gun for.
Yeah, I know, Kitty.
And I can't keep him in jail forever.
Yeah.
By the way, Mr. John, I wouldn't mind being in jail myself, getting billows like this, do you?
That's some who wouldn't agree with you, Chester.
Getting them fetched, do you?
Just like a fancy hotel.
Here's your breakfast, Billy.
I don't want none.
Maybe you'll change your mind.
All right, take it inside, Chester.
Yes, sir.
The band's out to get up that Christmas night.
I told you I didn't want it.
All right, then, leave it.
And let them eggs and salad board go to waste, and you can just eat cold mush tomorrow morning.
I'm all out of here, Marshal.
You ain't got nothing to hold me for.
Judge Bentz says different.
He's going to set bail this afternoon or tomorrow.
Tomorrow I'll pay it.
Yeah?
Then you'll probably let her.
You really hate her, don't you, Billy?
I hate her?
You crazy?
If you don't hate her, why are you doing the same thing to her that your brother did?
You shut up!
I just don't understand.
Elvin was big.
He took anything he wanted and didn't ask nobody.
He's not big now, Billy.
No bigger than the rest of them out there on Boothill.
You're going to pay for that, Marshal.
If they don't get you, I will.
They?
Who's they, Billy?
You'd like to know, wouldn't you?
They're a pair of sneaking thieving rats the same as Elvin was.
You don't owe them anything.
Now where are they?
Matt, do you want to man it?
Oh, yeah, I'll be right out, Doc.
You better think it over, Billy.
You think it over, Marshal.
Maybe you won't call them rats when one of them guns you for killing my hudda.
He's pretty head-hugging.
Yeah.
Now I'm on it, Doc.
Oh, Matt, you still got the grub boy here?
We just took him his breakfast.
Oh, good.
I think it may be you'd want to know about his ma.
Know what about her?
It was that herd of yearling calves she's got out there.
Seems that she was trying to work them by herself, and they knocked her down and trampled her.
But she hurt bad.
Well, she'd be laid up in bed a week or so.
She looks worse off than she is, where you'd think the Indians had caught her maybe and beat her to a pulp.
And my trouble never comes single once it starts.
Wait a minute, Doc.
Wait a minute.
Huh?
Wait a minute.
Yeah, that might work.
If she'll go along with it, that just might work.
Well, we'll leave the horses here.
Why?
Come on, Billy, let's go in and see her.
What happened to her?
Why won't you tell me what happened to her?
She's got us a tellier herself.
Ma?
Ma, where are you?
I'm here, Billy.
All right, go on.
Ma, is your wife?
So Billy, at least I get there will be.
Doc says there will, but Billy, why have they got handcuffs on you?
It ain't nothing, Ma.
Marshall said he knows where you were and he'd fetch you, but what's he done, Marshall?
Well, he just lost his head a little, ma'am.
I might have been willing to forget that part, but, hell, he's dead set on protecting a couple of bank robbers.
And I figured a jail cell might change his mind for him.
Them two that was with Elvin, that's who it was.
His partner's friends, that's who you're protecting.
Now, Ma.
He's a sneak and coward, just as low and mean and worthless as Elvin had got to be.
He's dead, Ma.
You got no call to talk about him like that.
Dead, yes.
Better off dead.
I'm his own Ma, saying that.
You ought to have been here this morning, Billy.
Shake hands with your friends.
Maybe you could have helped them.
What are you talking about?
Look at me.
How do you think this happened?
They wouldn't do that to you.
My friends, yours and Elvin's, all I seen was a handkerchief over their faces.
They said Elvin had told them I was keeping money for them, money they'd stole somewhere.
Ma, they didn't.
They couldn't have dragged me out in New York, Billy.
Used their boots, chunk of stove wood.
I'll kill them.
So help me, I'll kill them both.
Why them?
They're the same kind as Elvin.
They were his friends.
Well, they ain't my friends.
Marshal, their names is Chuck Steller and Curly Tolman.
They're at that old abandoned sodhouse west of Branch 4 crossing, just above the ridge.
Yeah, I know where it is, Billy.
All right, take the handcuffs off, Chester.
Yes, sir.
I'm sorry, Marshal, I acted pretty crazy.
Well, I'll do it once in a while, Billy.
Well, then it must have been the same kind, or he wouldn't have run with them.
I guess he wasn't so big at all.
No, Billy, not very big, I'm afraid.
Billy, would you mind fixing me a cup of tea?
Sure, Ma.
Right away.
Now, you just lay back there and rest.
You're going to be well in no time.
I lied to him, Marshal.
It was a bright lie, though, wasn't it?
Yes, ma'am.
About as white as they come, Miss Grave.
Hello, Chester.
I guess we'd better go bring them in.
Music
Music
Music
Gun Smoke, produced and directed by Norman MacDonald, stars William Conrad as Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshal.
Featured in the cast were Marlee 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.
Music
Music