 Kathy and Elliot Lewis on stage. Kathy Lewis, Elliot Lewis. Two of the most distinguished names in radio. Appearing each week in their own theater. Starring in a repertory of transcribed stories of their own and your choosing. Radio's foremost players in radio's foremost plays. Ladies and gentlemen, Elliot Lewis. May I present my wife, Kathy. Good evening. As a member of the audience, I don't believe I've ever heard a bad Western. Some of them are extraordinarily good. Gun smoke here on CBS radio is probably the best example of that. Shirley Gordon, who seems to be one of your favorite writers for on stage plays, decided she wanted to write a Western since we hadn't done one since the series started. And that's what we're going to do tonight. A strange and exciting story of the West by Shirley Gordon called The Hanging at Four Oaks. The sound is coming from behind the hill out there in the distance. The sound of guns being fired. We're standing in a clump of brush several hundred yards away on the flat of the land. And then a man on horseback appears riding this way, and behind him two other men firing their rifles at him. He's got his horse. He can't get far. Two directions are good ahead. We better split up. My gun's on you, Sheriff. You know I'll use it. I need your horse. You're crazy, Cain. You'll never make it. Getting off easy. Getting off real easy. I'm letting you live. Don't count on me giving you the same break next time we meet, Cain. You don't have it coming. You'll have to find me first. Deal, boy. Without direction. That's the way it is with you. And has been for a long time now. Ride from here to there, from somewhere to anywhere. Ride hard, fast. Until your horse needs water. And its ride are a path of stronger substance. Gin. How about whiskey, stranger? My money's good, I said gin. Maybe you'll find out how good your money is, stranger. I can draw my gun easy as I did my money. Hold it. We only mean to be friendly. You come in and show your money and ask for gin. You're gonna get more than you asked for. Whiskey to wet your thirst. And gin to wet your appetite. Only bring her on. Evening, Rusty. You dance good. I say it to you every night, don't I? Every night. I like to hear it. I like to say it. Who asked for me tonight, Rusty? He's a stranger. He didn't know what he was getting, but I think he liked it all the same. That him? End of the bar? That's him. He owes me a drink. His money's good. I'll go take a look at it. That'll be the last he'll see of it. Rusty says you asked for me. I don't know Rusty and I don't know you. Well, that's Rusty. And I'm gin. You bought a dance and you owe me a drink. That's the way it is. What did you have? Rusty's brain. Rusty's getting to be no stranger. Nobody stays as stranger here in Foro. Thanks, Rusty. Thanks to stranger. I dance for you. You buy me a drink. We're not strangers anymore. What do I call you? Simon. Simon Kane. What kind of man are you, Simon Kane? Where do you come from? The kind of man you don't ask where he comes from. Or where he's going? What he says today is not where he'll be tomorrow. Here in Foro, there aren't any tomorrow. Then maybe you're right. Maybe I won't stay a stranger here. Let's drink to that, Simon Kane. Cold and gray over the unsettled dust of this western town of Foroaks. It's quiet. A disturbing kind of quiet that's no more than an interlude between acts of hostility and violence. That sliver of silence between a rattler's recoil and its strike. You're a stranger to Foroaks. You lay where you've been thrown. Sprawled on your side in the gutter of its deserted street with the taste of dirt in your mouth. Your head spins and the mind struggles to bring the memory into focus. The memory of money, drink, and a woman. Good money, bad whiskey. And the woman called Gin. Welcome to Foroaks. Summon beaten and bruised muscles to respond. Raise up on one elbow. Force swollen eyes into open slits. Bring a slackened jaw into place against a jellied lip that spills over every word. Who did this? Who did what? Who beat you up? Who threw you into the gutter? Who took your money? Who fixed your drink? Who ordered it done? Who did it? You want to know all that, stranger? I want to know. I already told you. Welcome to Foroaks. This is the kind of town you're in, stranger. You're planning to stay. Who ordered it done? I could tell you, but why should I? You bought me a drink and did me no harm. Why should I want to see you stay in Foroaks the hard way cold in your coffin? Who is he? I already told you it's more than one man. It's the whole town. The only law here is jungle law. Kill to eat. Become a glutton, sharpen your teeth on silver and gold. Going now, stranger? Away from this town? Back where you came from? That's what it's going to get. From you, stranger? You don't know this town. This town doesn't know Simon Cain. What'd you expect? Fine. Nobody's in here this hour of day. Where's your friend Rusty, who takes good money for bad whiskey? Rusty likes bad whiskey. He takes it to bed with it. Where is he? Why Rusty? Where is he? Like I said, why should I tell you? Where Rusty is doesn't make any difference. If I don't start with Rusty, I start with you. You're going to get tough with me, stranger. You're going to pay back the town that way, Simon Cain? Where is Rusty? Fine, Brunt. He's the man you're looking for. Try slapping him in the face, Simon Cain. Through the sleeping town. Through the deceptive silence of the early morning hour. Search out the slumbering citizens of this violent prairie community. See that more than one man likes bad whiskey well enough to sleep with it. You! Hear me! Hear what I ask! I want Bronson. Where do I find him? Who are you? Simon Cain. Tell me where I find Bronson. Something strike you funny? You, stranger. You're looking for Bronson. Where do I find him? You don't. You don't look for Bronson. He finds you. Flour every corner of the town. Scrape away the dirt you find there. Shake its heavy, littered, close mouthed population into consciousness. Smell the stale whiskey and watch scornful smiles spread over leather faces. Ask and get no answer. See a young boy. Move toward him and wonder what the name Bronson can mean to a young boy. Say the name and study the effect it has. Watch the young face. See it show the same smile and the same scorn. Go look at your face at a mud hole, mister. Looks like you already found Mr. Bronson once. Once was enough. Look back on the young grinning face. You don't even any scores by beating up a boy. You go looking for somebody your own size. And you find him. Morning, Rusty. I've been looking for you. Well, if it ain't the stranger with a taste for gin in his mouth, you ain't looking so good this morning, stranger. What's the matter? Can't take whiskey like a man. Where's Bronson? Bronson? You're looking for Bronson, stranger? Where is he? Anyone wants Bronson, don't have to look. You'll see, stranger. Tell me. Where's Bronson? You are. Where is he? I'll tell you. Why not? A man as anxious as you to go to his own funeral. Ride west out of town, stranger. Ride to the ranch as big as the town. Bronson will be waiting for you. What you want to know? That's what I want to know. Ride west out of Four Oaks. Wet the dust of the trail with your blood as you ride. Bind the wound in haste. Be ready for what's to come. Ride fast to find Bronson before he's ready for you. Ride west and look to the north and the south. Ride west and look back to the east. But when it happens, you don't see it. From the fuzzy edge of pain, feel beaten, fight to lift the curtain of paralysis long enough to look upon your faceless enemy. To see the man whose name alone you know. Let the cold water slide across the heat of your face. Puzzle over the thing that breaks through the barrier of your unconsciousness. The scent of strong perfume. Open glazed eyes to catch the glint of bright colored spangles. You never say die, do you, stranger? The woman, Jim. Kneeling there on the ground beside you. The empty water canteen in her hand. Something else. The rifle in her lap. You are listening to Kathy and Elliot Lewis on stage. Tonight's play, The Hanging at Four Oaks. There's outstanding dramatic listening in the daytime, too, on CBS Radio. Ma Perkins and Aunt Jenny make fiction as real as life with their gripping day-to-day dramas. Young Dr. Malone and Perry Mason keep you thoroughly engrossed in their exciting daily adventures. They're yours for the best at daytime listening at the stars address. The woman, Jim, have no choice. Feel the pain tear you apart. See how steady her hands hold the reins and the gun. Sit astride the horse with the woman. Fall against her as you ride and feel the warmth and the softness of her. Fall against her and forget the pain. Been sleeping a long time. Just as well. How long? Through the day, all of the night and into another day. What time is it? Late morning of the second day. Where are we? In a place I know of. In Four Oaks? Away from it. Not far, but away. Bronson's Ranch? Yes. That's the farthest edge of it where Bronson never rides and no one else. How's the pain? There's less of it. Bullet is out and the wound will heal. Your arm was cut badly as well, but it will also heal. I'll wait for the wounds to heal. You'll wait until Bronson seeks other prey and rust. And you? You strike a drowning man to save him. Drink this. If you will tell me as I drink it why you've done what you have for me. I told you before you bought me a drink and did me no harm. Why should I want to see you in an early grave? That isn't the way it is. Get cold. Why do you fill me with hot soup to make me well? What should it matter to you what becomes of me? Tell me, Simon Kane, what you've found here in Four Oaks. What I've found? The way things are here. The way you've found them to be. People. Lawless, arrogant. There's violence everywhere in this new young land. It's the same here in Four Oaks. There is nothing else here. Only violence and evil. I've seen you fight against it and I want to help you. I want to see something good made out of the way it is here. I wish I were what you think I am. But you know nothing of me, nothing of what I have done. I'm a stranger to you. You're no more a stranger to me, Simon Kane. Whatever you are, whatever you have done, I've come to love you. Leave it be. I've had enough soup. What song is that? It's not the same as you danced to the night I came to Four Oaks. It's a sweeter song. It's a sadder one. Why do you say it's sad? Because the girl's dying when she sings a song. And afterward her lover is left all along. It's a beautiful song. It shouldn't be sad. So wait here sometime. Not heated. Watch the heart mouth of the woman gin. See it fall soft upon the sweet words. The music is lost. Sleep long. And wait to hear no sound of her singing. Find nothing left but the smell of her in your room. Wait. Wait and tend your wounds. But the woman comes no more. So ride. Ride back into the town of Four Oaks. You asked me from when you got before a stranger. I'm asking for the same as I got before. Ole, bring her on. Ole, don't take orders from just anybody. Then let's hear you drop the nickel in his play of piano, Rusty. Use one of my nickels, I won't mind. As long as I get what I'm asking for. What you're asking for ain't mine to give, stranger. Or yours to get. Give only the word, Rusty. What you're asking ain't for Ole to give either. I'm not asking. I'm telling you. Tell Bronson. Bronson again? That's right, Bronson. You're in his town, stranger. Standing in his place. Let's hear you tell him what you want. Tell Bronson you want his woman. Bronson's woman? The town belongs to Bronson and the land around it and the people, but most of all the woman, Gin. She belongs to Bronson. So you tell him, stranger. Tell him you want Gin to do your dance you can't pay for. Where's Bronson? I told you once, where's Bronson? What happened that time? You got stopped by a woman, that right, stranger? Bronson's woman. Because Bronson wasn't ready for you. Where is he, Rusty? Don't worry. You won't have any trouble finding him this time. This time she led you right to him, didn't she? Once more, Rusty, and that's all. Where's Bronson? You're Bronson? I've been looking, Bronson. But I hear you have to have time to hide behind a woman's skirts. What the count of three, King? Rusty? One. Two. All in white, feel her pain passed away from four oaks. Fix you hot soup, make you well. I love you, Simon Kane. Maybe now things can be the way you want it. Maybe now somebody will make something good out of the way it is here. Nothing good can come of what I am. And in the morning feel her slip away. While the sun shines cold upon your back. Sheriff, you won't need it anymore, Kane. Well, you're going the only way a horse could do you any good is if it had wings. Stranger. He's a killer, Tom. It's too late to try your preach it on him. It's never too late, Sheriff. Well, go on inside and preach at him then. See if you can talk a halo around his head before I put a noose around his neck. I've come to talk to you. Who are you? My name's Tom Wilkins. I live here in Forill. What do you want to talk to me about? About you? About what made you a killer? What's that to you, Tom Wilkins? I like to find out the reason for things. I like to find out what makes people the way they are. The way people are is the reason for everything. In the beginning I wasn't a killer. Only then somebody got killed and people thought I did it. So they started saying I was a killer. Until I had to be one. That's the way it was. Did you ever know who did that killing? People thought you did. I saw him do it. But I didn't know who he was or where he went until I saw him again a long time later. Here, in Forrocks. Then I saw him get killed to keep him from killing me. And now I get hanged tomorrow. Figure out the reason for things. Find out what makes people the way they are, Tom Wilkins. If that's what you want to do. That's what I want to do. Can I walk to the hanging with you, Tom? If you want, boy, come along. Imagine a famous outlaw right here in Forrocks. How many people they say killed Tom? Like about a dozen, they say. I reckon maybe he was a bigger man than Mr. Bronson even, huh? If you consider the size of a man by the killings he's done, maybe he was. Well, here he are, boy. Looks like the strangers about ready to leave Forrocks. Hear the low voices of the curious and the blood thirsty. Feel the knotted rope strain anxious against your neck as the horse you sit paws restless at the dry ground. Look up to the gnarled oak tree of a hundred solemn years that is to be your executioner. Hey! Oh, boy, that's it. Let's be going back. It was a good hanging, huh, Tom? No hanging is good, boy. It's what comes of violent and evil ways. You preaching again, Tom? Reckon I am. Reckon this whole town could do with a little preaching. You figuring something out, Tom? That's right, boy. I'm figuring something out. What you figuring? Figuring how to make something good out of the way it is here. Like cutting down that old oak tree to just hang the stranger and using that good lumber to build me a church. That's what I'm figuring to do, boy. Build a church right over the grave of that killer. Hanging at Forrocks, starring Kathy and Elliot Lewis on stage. In a moment, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis will tell you about next week's play. In your town, in the next town, across the nation, you'll find the Red Cross. The Red Cross is the symbol and soul of humanity. You are a part of that symbol because it's the money you contribute that enables the Red Cross to continue its great work. Answer the call, and humanity will answer you with gratitude. Now once again, Kathy and Elliot Lewis. A wonderful new radio play by the talented Shirley Gordon. We hope you enjoyed it. To have with us tonight Barney Phillips, who you've enjoyed in many recent motion pictures. He was the bartender, Rusty. While Harry Bartell was the gentle preacher and Johnny McGovern the boy, Tom. Edgar Barrier rejoined us tonight to play the villainess Bronson, and Byron Kane was the sheriff. Next week, a delightful story by Arthur Ross called, And the Fun Farewell. Since it's about three people, I suppose it would be called a triangle play, but it's a little more delicate than that. Until then, thank you for listening, and good night. Good night.