Father and Son

Originally Aired: April 23, 1961 In Gunsmoke #472, "Father and Son," Marshal Matt Dillon confronts a chilling case of murder and brutality when he and Chester discover a driverless wagon on the trail back to Dodge. Inside, they find a barely conscious Indian woman who has been savagely beaten. Doc Adams manages to save her life, and through Kitty's gentle questioning, the woman reveals a horrifying story: she and her husband Adam were setting up camp when two large men rode in, accepted their hospitality, then attacked them. She heard her husband being beaten as he tried to defend her, followed by a gunshot before she lost consciousness. Meanwhile, trouble of a different kind brews in Dodge when Chester witnesses a disturbing scene at the Long Branch. A rough man named Zachary Wilkins is forcing his son Buford to drink whiskey as part of his twisted notion of making the boy into a man. Matt intervenes and warns Wilkins to keep his son sober or face jail time. As Matt prepares to ride out and search for the murdered husband's body, the question looms: could these two seemingly separate incidents be connected?