The Piano

Originally Aired: August 17, 1958 In Gunsmoke #332, "The Piano," Marshal Matt Dillon and Chester find themselves in a desperate pursuit after a brutal stagecoach holdup. When the stage rolls into Dodge City with its shotgun messenger Mike badly wounded and the driver dead, Mike manages to gasp out crucial details before losing consciousness: two men ambushed the stage at Hat Creek and made off with a twenty thousand dollar currency shipment. Despite getting only two hours of sleep, Matt and Chester track the outlaws through the night, following a distinctive cracked horseshoe print. The trail leads them to a remote shack near a creek, where a shootout leaves one robber critically wounded while his partner escapes into the gathering darkness. The real surprise comes when they carry the dying outlaw to the shack and meet its occupant: the eccentric Miss Hanford, a Southern woman living alone in genteel poverty who insists on protecting her "fine things" with a shotgun. Though her furniture is broken and worthless, she fiercely guards an old piano as her most precious possession. As Miss Hanford serves the lawmen supper and insists on nursing the wounded outlaw herself, Matt and Chester realize this strange woman has been living in her own carefully constructed world since her husband abandoned her years ago, training herself to ignore the harsh realities right outside her door.