 Frontier Town, the saga of the Roaring West. Frontier Town, El Paso, Cheyenne, Calgary, Tombstone. Frontier Town, here is the adventurous story of the early West, the tamed and the untamed. From the Pekos to Powder River, Dodge City to Poker Flat. These are the towns they fought to live in and lived to fight for, teaming crucibles of pioneer freedom. Frontier Town! If you're interested in facts and statistics, I'm a Frontier Town lawyer named Chad Remington. Frontier Town called Osreous. The rest of the facts and statistics somehow are the kind you get from the government. Because this little adventure in danger, I want to tell you about, couldn't have happened unless the government had ordered the re-monetizing of silver. And this brought about one of the most turbulent booms the Frontier has ever known. The boom brought thousands upon thousands of people into the painted hills behind the town of Angel's Draw. And although Angel's Draw originally referred to a gap in the hills behind the town, which under the proper twilight lighting looked like an angel with his pinion spread, by the time the silver boom was underway, Angel's Draw had taken on a new meaning and a deadly one. It was said, and with a good deal of reason, that the man who was slow on the draw soon became an angel. Curious to see the boisterous town and the country around it, and hopeful of finding new opportunities, Cherokee O'Bannon, a reformed medicine man who most always rides with me now, and I, saddled up and set out for the turbulence and excitement of Angel's Draw. Counselor Remington, I'm willing to admit that I'm glad you persuaded me to join you in this trip to Angel's Draw. You persuaded you? I came mere having to throw a holder on you to restrain you once you heard about a boom down with its wine, women, and song. Fire on wine, women, and song? Double fire with little yellow ribbons on it. Oh, so? You mean you're no longer interested in wine, women, and song? Sir, I've never been interested in wine, women, and song. No, indeed. No, indeed. The only thing that ever appealed to the O'Bannon has been liquor, ladies, and brass bands. Well, you certainly like your pleasures hard-boiled. I not only like my pleasures hard-boiled, Counselor, but from time to time I've been known to become boiled myself. Yes, indeed. Well, that certainly explains why you spend most of your time in hot water. Yes, indeed. I say, champ, see down there? Looks like something's going on down on the street. Sure does. Seems to be a whole crowd milling around a man who's up on a platform or a soapbox. These watery blue optics don't deceive me. There's trouble going on down there. Real trouble. Come on, man. Don't just stand there. Rattle up that pony. It was hard making much speed down the rutted and crowded street. But as we neared the knot of juring people, we were able to make out a little better the man standing on the packing case. He was tall and boney, with a look about him of the hill country. His clothes were black where they hadn't worn green. And he wore his collar reversed. A preacher. A preacher fighting to bring the gospel to a boomtown crowd. Cherokee and I reigned up and started working our way through the crowd to hear about it, to find out what was going on. I ask you, what good will all the silver in the hills do you if you do not find the gold in your hearts? How long are you going to sit indently by and countenance the bestial vulgarities visited upon you? And countenance the bestial vulgarities visited upon you and your families by this Pablo Perkins? How long are you asking? Ah, go on. Try it out, will you? We like this town the way it is, and we don't need you. All the likes of you around. Yeah! Yeah! If Pablo Perkins sent you here to disrupt this meeting, go back and tell him that my mission hasn't even started. Pablo Perkins serves mammon? I serve a lord. Ever since you've come to this town, gasoline, you've done nothing but core names. Mr. Perkins happens to be a friend of ours, and if you're fighting him, you're fighting ours. And if it's a fight you're looking for, Reverend, we'll be glad to oblige. Come on, boys, get that son singer off that box and run him out of town. If there are any of you who want some, sung over him, just take another step. Well, who do you think you are? Coming in here and telling us what to do. We'll show you who we are in mighty short order if you insist on being convinced. I'm not waiting. A lot of you, break this up and clear off the street. My son, I appreciate your help, but I have no fear of these men. And neither have I, Reverend. Not while they're in front of me. Why, you loudmouth, big talker! Anyone else want to start reaching for their guns? Come on, boys, let's get down and get some tar and feathers. Yeah, we'll run the three of them out of town! All right, Cherokee, you can put your gun up now. Gentlemen, although I dislike being beholden to any man, I want you to know my gratefulness for your timely interception. The people of this town have no respect for the cloth. It looks to me as if this town could use a lot of what you've got to sell. It does indeed. Well, Mr. O'Bannon here used to sell something that wasn't 1% as good for folks as what you've got. So, if you'd like, perhaps if we got our heads together, we might be of some help. Any help would be welcome. And if you'd care to ride over to the little shack my wife and I live in, perhaps you'll brew us a pot of tea while we talk this over. A pot of it? Cherokee. All right, Reverend, we'll get our horses and you lead the way. The cabin Reverend Gasaway occupied with his wife, Alma, was little more than some packing cases. Mining machinery had come in, nailed together. But it was scrubbed and clean and had an air about it that bespoke home. Despite the obstacles in their path, both the Reverend and his wife were still filled with hope. Well, this is a frontier town, Mr. Remington. Although the Reverend hasn't been able to clean it up entirely, I think our efforts have helped some. Some, Alma, is far from enough. And the little we have accomplished has been blocked by what we had best term the opposition. What's been blocked? Well, a few weeks ago, the Reverend shamed the so-called town council and the passing of closing law. All places that serve liquor are supposed to close at 2 a.m. They're supposed to all right, but they don't. But you've got a marshal's office here. We saw the marshal's office as we rode into town. Yes, there's a marshal, but apparently he's in the pay of Pablo Perkins, too. Then you have no law at all in Angel's Draw. Not the right kind of law. You see, Mr. Remington, the Reverend and I are far from being blue-nosed reformers. But Perkins and his tribe are bleeding the miners and their families of their hard earned pay. In fairness to the wives and children, we feel that it must be stopped. And I suppose there's no church in Angel's Draw. The only church in Angel's Draw at the moment is in Alma's heart and my own. With the few contributions I've been able to get, we bought a plot for our church on a knoll which overlooks the town. It's up on top of some old diggits. But now that Perkins is running this town, we haven't been able to raise a dollar in two weeks for building interior. Who is this Perkins character? Is he a Mexican? Or do you call him Pablo? Pablo is his nickname. We understand that he got it because of the finery he wears. Satin vests and silver ornaments. Just like a Spanish grandee. And probably what he needs is a few weeks on the torture racks of the Spanish Inquisition. As a man of the cloth, I know that Pablo Perkins will face his own Inquisition when he... The window! What happened? Someone tossed a brick through the window with a note attached to it. Well, not very imaginative. But not many people in Angel's Draw seem to be very imaginative. What did they write, Chad? What does the note say? Well, even that isn't very imaginative either. It just says get out of town and it's signed with a skull and crossbones. It's from Perkins, all right. Or one of his crowd. Reverend, do you honestly feel that if the saloons and gambling joints in Angel's Draw could be made to close at 2 in the morning, that there'd be enough money available so that you could get some to build your church? Oh, there's no question about it, Mr. Remington. The wives of the men who have fleeced out of their pay have told me time and again that they'd contribute to the church. Well, in that case, we'll see what we can do about closing up those dives and Pablo Perkins right along with them. Huh? And how do you propose to do that, Chad? Well, if you'll come with me, Cherokee, I think you'll find out. We're going down to the Marshal's office and do a little talking straight from the shoulder. The Marshal? He wouldn't dare walk into Perkins' place and tell him to close it up. Well, I dare. And I'd enjoy it, the boot. All right, come on, Cherokee. We're wasting time here when we should be talking to the Marshal. What you fellas are asking me to do is impossible. Pablo Perkins is a big man in this town, the biggest. You're the town Marshal. You will put an office to enforce the laws. How much is Perkins paying you to lay off? Now, wait a minute. You got this whole thing wrong. No one's paying me nothing. All I get is my wages for doing my job. And if I cross up Perkins, he'll fix it so I won't get that. Cherokee, it looks to me as if all that's wrong with Angel's draw could be cured by getting a new town Marshal. Oh, now, look here. I'm a married man. I've got a family. So have a lot of the miners around this town. And your friend Perkins is taking the bread and butter out of the mouths of a good many families. Oh, good God. That ain't my fault. We say that it is. And since this whole thing is as distasteful to me as it seems to be to you, I'm going to ask you just once more. Are you giving O'Bannon and me deputies badges or aren't you? Now, now, wait a minute. You're putting me in an awful spot. Pablo will have my hide if I do anything like that. Well, that's our answer. Now, the next step is to get an indictment against this jelly-kneed so-called lawman for malfeasance in office and have him thrown out. Well, all right, all right. You win. Well, if we win, let's have the prizes. Get out those deputy Marshal badges. Now, now your badges. Now hold up your right hand. You solemnly swear to uphold. We'll return to the second act of the Glory Trail, our exciting Frontier Town adventure in just a few moments. Frontier Town. Oh, there were the two of us, O'Bannon and I with deputies badges. Two men against, if not half the town, at least against this Pablo Perkins and his complement of gun totes. Tough odds? Well, not as tough as they might first appear. Because knowing that Perkins was a gambler, I knew that he was at least half bluff. And if he could be half bluff, Cherokee and I might get someplace by bluffing three-quarters of the way. However, not wanting to expose our cards until the pot had been built up, Cherokee and I sat in the Marshal's office so that he couldn't get loose and worn Perkins. And we sat there until the clock struck two next morning. Then checking our guns to make sure that they were ready and able, Cherokee and I started out down the street and headed for Pablo Perkins' straight flush café, which as usual, even at this hour of the morning, was jammed to the rafters. Hey, Pablo. Yeah, Wendy? Have you seen the Marshal? I ain't seen him around tonight. Yeah, that's right. Now that I think of it, neither have I. He generally comes in sometime around midnight for his, uh, his salary. You think, uh, something's happened to him? What have it had? It ain't gonna make me feel bad. That ain't what I mean, boss. I mean them two jaspers who rode into town today and stopped us from busking up old man Gasaway's revival meeting. What about him? Uh-huh. Remember what Cleat said? He thought he saw him going into the Marshal's office a little while after? You quit worrying that Marshal ain't got enough salt in his whole system to sprinkle on a soft-boiled egg. You know more doing anything to stop us from... What's gotten through you, Wendy? What are you staring at? Here come them two I was telling you about right now. And do you see what they got pinned on their chest? Marshal's badges. From the clothes you're wearing, I take it that you're Pablo Perkins. What of it? Oh, nothing much. That a watch you've got on the end of that gold chain, Perkins? Yeah. And what of that? What time is it, Perkins? Well, I think it's time for you to get out of here. It's time for everybody to get out of here. It's twenty past two. Well, wrong about that, too. It's twenty-eight minutes past... Good. Then that just gives you two minutes to have this place emptied out and closed up by two-thirty. We're giving you half hour of the best of it right there. You red-nosed hippie. I'm sorry, my friend, but any gunplay in this place tonight will be done by the law. And at this hour of the morning, my temper's worn pretty thin. Well, there's not much I can do when you come in here and pull a gun at me. But if you don't mind, I'm gonna pour myself another drink. Pat, look out! He's grabbed a bottle! That's about as low down a stunt as anyone's try to pull, Perkins. Nobody but a side-winding snake would reach for a bottle behind a man's back. And if I didn't have a man with me like Deputy O'Bannon, who never takes his eye off a bottle, you might have gotten away with it. But now you've only got one minute left to close this joint, or we're marching you down to jail. Well, Mars? Hey, quiet down a minute, will you? Quiet! There'll be no more playing and nothing more served in here tonight. So go on, beat it. Go on home. Wise guys. The closing order's good for the decent people in this town. It certainly applies to the riff-raff like you. Now go on, make tracks. If I ever see your heads over the top of the bat-wing doors again, I'm telling you right now I'll blast them. Blast them right off your shoulders. I guess that was about the easiest victory I ever won. Or so it appeared at the moment. Yes, and even for days later. As a matter of fact, Pablo Perkins' easy-wielding, I'm afraid, made us all let down our guards. Just as Alma Gasaway had said, money started to flow in for the building of the little church. Not only money, which was no longer lost over the long bar or the gaming tables at the straight flush cafe, but nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollars squeezed out of the household money of grateful wives. And as fast as the money poured in, the Gasaway's Cherokee and I bought building materials and dragged them up to the knoll that we nicknamed Glory Hill. Willing hands nailed the studs and joists and stringers into places as our little church started to gain form and grow. This being a carpenter is wearing work. Oh, yes, Cherokee, hard work's not easy. Nope, even the Lord's work isn't easy. I don't say amen to that. Too bad we can't make that yellow-spine molly coddle of a marshal come up here and drive a few nails instead of lolling around that office of his. Oh, Cherokee, that's no way for a deputy to talk about his boss. Besides, if the marshal... Hello. Here comes a real surprise. See who's buffing his way up the hill? Prizes be Mr. Perkins. Perkins? If that no good imitation of a man is coming up here to make more trouble, I'll personally thrash him within an inch of his life. Good morning, Brother Perkins. Good morning, Reverend. This is Gasaway. Good morning to you too, you deputy marshal. It brings you up the hill, Pablo, and particularly at so early an hour in the morning. Well, ever since you made us close up at two o'clock and I'm getting a bed at a respectable hour, I'm up and out every morning. And it's still not too late for you to be redeemed. Much of the Lord's work is done in the morning. Well, that's what I came up to see about, Reverend. My eyes have been opened. Closing early, I'm still making enough money, and since I don't want to see this little town of ours split in two by factions, and to show you that my heart is really in the right place, I have brought you up a little donation for your church. Here. 500 simoleons. Maybe I should make a practice of getting up early every morning myself. Yes, I should. Well, Reverend, what's the matter? Why don't you take the money? Brother Perkins, I'm very grateful for your more than generous offer, but I'm sure that a man who is as wise as you are must recognize that I cannot take a contribution for the cause of good when the money comes from the cause of mammon. Dear, are you sure you're not being a little hasty? No, Mrs. Gasaway, I think the Reverend is right. However, let us not belittle Perkins' generosity and the parent chains of heart. Okay, you're the doctors, but if you ever do get stuck, you know where to find me, and the money's yours just for the askin'. You would do far more good for our church and yourself by attending every Sunday rather than contributing to it. I may fool you at that. You never can tell. I may get religion soon. Adios. I think that was simply wonderful of him. And I must admit that so do I. Well, I don't. I'm afraid that the years I've spent rubbing shoulders with dishonest characters like that gambler have convinced me that a leopard doesn't change his spots and a polecat doesn't change his strides. How right, Cherokee, was Pablo Perkins walked down Glory Hill, and although we couldn't see it, his face wore a smug, self-satisfied smile. Once back in the town itself, he strode into the straight flushed cafe back in one of his gun slicks, walked into his office, and locked the door. What's that, Brosh? I just went up with there, building the church. I knew this gettin' up early in the morning wasn't good for you. What'd you do that for? I offered the old coup de donation to help him finish the church. 500 bucks. Now I know your local. Yeah, a local like a fox. Now when that church ain't here no more, no one in Angel's draw will even think I had something to do with it. You're gonna look over sure the church ain't gonna be here no more. That's what I said, the church is gonna vanish into a million pieces of kindling wood. You see, they're building the church right on top of an old diggin' in the old tunnels right below it. What's the tunnel got to do with it? In Minin, they use explosives. And who's to say if the tunnel suddenly blows up, taking the church along with it, that it ain't from some old dynamite that was left in the diggins when they quit? How do you know there was dynamite left in the diggins? I didn't say there wasn't any left but there's gonna be some left because you and me, we're gonna leave it there all wrapped up with a nice lighted fuse. Yes, sir, Wendy, when they open that church on Sunday, there's gonna be a big celebration. A big blowout. Just like the 4th of July. Chad, there should be a warm glow in your heart that'll endure all your life as you watch these good brothers and sisters climbing up Glory Hill to attend church. I've got a glow, all right, but the real satisfaction must be yours and your wife's. Oh, I've never known. A happier day or a happier moment? Well, I think it's time we should be going inside and holding our first communion with the Lord in his new edifice. You go ahead, Reverend, and you too, Mrs. Gasserway. I'd better wait here for Cherokee. Even though his past is well behind him, I think it would be better if I made sure that he gets to church. Whatever. You go right ahead. But where is Cherokee? You know, he's not in the pink of physical condition. Although he's full of the milk of human kindness, right now he occasionally backtracks and imbibes other kind of fluids. So he's a huffin' and a puffin' his way up that hill. All right, Chad, we leave you to get behind Satan and push Cherokee and Satan both into church. Come, Alma. Don't be late now, Chad. Good morning, brother. Beautiful day, ain't it? And a good, good morning to you. Cherokee. Cherokee, come on. Chad, wait. Don't go inside yet. Oh, for goodness' sake, what's the matter? Chad, I just saw something that scared ten years out of my life. What? His satanic majesty moving out of Angel's drawer? Oh, much worse than that. Halfway down the hill to the left where you can't see it from here, I saw two men just vanish into the side of the hill. What were you doing around to the left? Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I stopped behind some juniper bushes to take a snort so I could climb the rest of the hill. Chad, I'd swear that one of those men was Pablo Perkins and the other is Bodyguard. Now, what the dickens could Perkins be doing vanishing into the hill? Now, there's an old mining tunnel there from what I could see. Chad, we've got no time to waste. Those two are up to something and we'd better investigate. Come on, Cherokee, try to keep up. See, it isn't deserted mine. Come on, watch that brush. Let's get inside. Chad, there they are. They're lighting a fuse to something. Blast you, Rubbyton! Cherokee, try to grab him. I'm going to see if I can put out that fuse. Halm found you. You just try to make a run for it now. Blast it! Chad, they got me in the leg. Cherokee, see if you can go over and smother that fuse. I'll tie these two up and fast. Right, everybody, we shot the gun out of my hands. Wait, wait, wait! Use your knees, will you? Chad, your shoes is out. Get him out of this, Cherokee. You're hurting badly enough. Doggone, little Ben, you put out the fuse. You floored this other crook. Even with a slug in your leg, you did the work of two men. And why shouldn't I? There were two of us. Me and Satan right behind me. Well, I'll be blamed. Mr. O'Bannon has gone and fainted. If I should walk the meadows green, or sail the ocean wide, no fear would fill my trusting heart for thou art by my side. God's love for man fills every space. His presence goes with me. His roundabout and everywhere throughout eternity. Frontier Town, starring Reed Hadley and featuring Wade Crosby as a Brucell's production. Story and Direction by Paul Franklin. Music written and played by Ivan Dittmann. Be sure to be with us again same time next week for another fine action adventure story with your favorite young western star, Reed Hadley. Now this is Bill Foreman telling you that Frontier Town comes to you from Hollywood.