Thunder over Texas | Frontier Town (1949)

Coffee genius here.

Most people see a busy cafe, but I see precision at every step.

Thanks to genius, from global payments.

Transactions, instant.

Inventory, precise.

Operations, in sync.

Absolutely genius.

From sold-out crowds worldwide to managing the morning rush.

Genius keeps operations running smoothly.

One portato.

Flawless poor, perfectly timed.

Just beautiful.

Big league reliability for any business.

That's genius.

Welcome to the old-time radio westerns.

I'm your host Angelines, and let's get into this episode.

This episode is going to be frontier town.

Where's it aired in 1949?

The title is Thunder over Texas.

The Toyota Tundra and Tacoma are built to keep going.

Blending rugged muscle with precision engineering.

All supported by Toyota's time-tested legacy of dependability.

Step into a Tundra and feel the unyielding capability

with the available iForce Max engine.

Tundra puts out impressive power, torque, and towing performance.

And the roomy high-tech cabin keeps you connected on the go.

Or take a look at Tacoma made for drivers who push past the path.

Agile, tough and relentless with available features like crawl control,

portable JBL speaker, a power lift gate,

so gear goes in fast, and the adventure keeps moving.

The Tacoma and Tundra are engineered to endure season after season,

mile after mile.

So drive one home today, visit Toyota.com or stop by your local Toyota dealer

to find out more Toyota.

Let's go places.

Frontier town, the saga of the Roaring Whip.

Frontier town.

Little Passal, Cheyenne, Calgary, Tombstone.

Frontier town.

Here is the adventurous story of the early west,

the tamed and the unsame from the Pekos to Powder River,

Dad's city to poker flat.

These are the towns they fought to live in and lived to fight for,

teeming crucibles of pioneer freedom.

Frontier town.

Howdy.

Chad Remington's the name.

Frontier lawyers, occupation.

And it all boils down to one fact.

Trouble is my business.

Living as I do in the Caltown called Dos Rios,

smack dab on the middle of the raw height, tough front,

I get and I handle troubles of all kinds from people of all kinds.

Strangely enough, it troubles it is sometimes dropped in my lap,

have nothing to do with Dos Rios,

although somehow rather they have a good deal to do with the development of the west.

And it wasn't too long ago, I received a long letter,

that's pretty much it.

It was a long time ago,

I received a long letter,

desperate drive for help from people I'd never seen.

From a part of the country I'd never been to and hardly heard of.

I remember setting him off,

his upstairs over the Dos Rios living stable,

and discussing the letter with the man who owns a living stable.

Next medicine man, twice reformed by the name of Cherokee O'Bannon.

So you've never heard of this Mr. Newton, Chad?

Cherokee not only have I never heard of Mr. former Newton,

but I don't think I've ever heard of the town of Faust more than once.

Memory serves me that town is well named.

Now is this Mr. Newton saying about paying you a fee?

No, it doesn't.

Nor does that influence me one way or the other.

There must be some other lawyer around closer to him

who can help him straighten out their difficulties.

What are their difficulties?

And what I can gather from the letter, dust storms.

Dust storms that have completely ruined the land around Faust

and made Mr. Newton's farm and his neighbor's farm's worthless.

Billy Blue blazes, Chad. What does the man think you are?

A magician?

A magician might very well fit into a community

that got its name from the legend of Faust.

However, apparently that's not what they want.

They want some legal advice about how to obtain new lands from the government.

You mean you'd have to get out of Washington?

That alone would be enough to make me refuse the case all that red tape.

But the worst part of it is it just sounds plain ordinary dull.

You mean that you're going to turn down Mr. Newton?

Well, I haven't quite decided.

But look, since it's supper time, let's go get a bite deep

while I take it over.

Bite to eat.

Well, I'm not exactly hungry yet, Chad.

That is, I might be able to do justice to a good dinner.

If some kind gentleman provided me with a proper appetizer,

if you know what I mean, and I'm sure you do.

Oh, you all reprobate.

You know, you could save yourself and everybody else a lot of time

by ordering the proper combinations of food.

Combinations?

Sure, why not?

A perfect meal for you would be two sandwiches,

gin on white bread and bourbon on plain rye.

Yes indeed.

Yes indeed.

Well, during supper, I had decided conclusively that I'd

write Mr. Newton my sympathies at his flight,

and at the same time expressed my regret that at the moment

other matters occupied me so that I could not come down to

Faust and discuss his problems.

It was dark as Cherokee and I started back to the office

and could change those rehearsals.

Little main street was suddenly quiet.

You got to go upstairs and write that letter to Mr. Newton now, Chad?

Yeah, I see no reason why not.

I write it tonight.

I can get it in the mail on the 8 o'clock Eastbound coach

and take Cherokee.

That'll light up the turn upstairs in my office.

The light up.

I got pretty sad.

It is at light.

Looks like someone moving around in your office with a candle.

We'll see about that.

Come on.

Cherokee, use your other door open and back out of the way.

Sure will.

Watch it now, Chad.

Yeah!

So that's the way you wanted it.

Hey!

Come on, Cherokee.

Let's give him a dose of his own.

Chad, what in blazes was that?

He ran across the office and dived through the window.

Well, let's get after him.

A lot of good that'll do.

The time will get downstairs.

Again, around in the back he'll be a quarter mile out of time.

Oh, I'm going in and see if I can find not who the gentleman is,

but what he was looking for.

I found what he was looking for.

And it was no trouble.

My desk had been ransacked.

There in plain sight was a letter from Mr. Newton,

which I had so carefully stowed away in a pigeonhole an hour before.

It was out of its envelope, unfolded and opened.

Suddenly, I realized it perhaps this letter from Newton

might not be as innocent as it appeared.

By 10 o'clock next morning, Cherokee and I were aboard two

of his best livery stable horses, beaten up the dust

for the little town of Faust.

Late that same afternoon, we were still moving along

at a lively clip approaching the river bottom, dry and dusty,

hemmed in by painted rocks and filled with a jungle

of cotton wards and junipers.

I just had to think, Chad, this name Newton.

That's an uncommon moniker.

Sounds kind of foreign to my ear.

That is kind of foreign, Cherokee.

From a little I know, I judge that former Newton is a dain.

Probably like many of the dains in this country

operates a dairy farm.

Dain, eh?

Must relate him to, uh, what was that fellow's name?

Hamlet?

Yeah, if you insist on being literary.

And in this case, as Shakespeare pointed out in Hamlet,

there's probably something rotten in Denmark.

Or at least, yeah!

Billy Blue blazes, Chad.

That's the end of my new white steps of him.

And it's likely to be end of both of us if we don't look sharp.

Where did that truck come from?

Up yonder, they have no cotton wards.

Right where those two came from.

Who could be shooting at us?

This is only a guess, but apparently someone would be happier

if we never got to Faust and saw Mr. Newton.

From the appearance of the terrain around here,

they've got their battle more than half one.

Yeah!

Last of Chad, this is like being a clay pigeon in the shooting gallery.

Will they be able to ride through those cotton wards?

I'll look Cherokee.

I'm going to throw some lead into those cotton wards myself.

But you ought to send them back a little ducking for cover.

When I do, I want you to knock on that horse of yours

and cut up through that dry wash, wide open.

But what will happen to you if I do?

That's something we'll both find out later.

Now go on, O'Benn.

If we both get through, I'll meet you at Newton's house tomorrow morning.

Look here, Chad. I just can't.

I guess I can't with that.

Get up here and get up there.

Well, Mr. Newton, the only thing I can possibly suggest is

forget making any direct appeal to Washington,

but take an advantage of some new land the government's just thrown open to settlement

over in Sunbeam Valley.

That would save much time, you think?

What do you think, Mama?

This Sunbeam Valley.

It is green and mustard, no?

Madam, Sunbeam Valley is greener than the shamrocks in Ireland.

We must have green land because cows do not make milk from us.

We are here, Mr. Remington, 22 Danish families, all of us in dairy business.

Danish people understand how to raise cows to make milk rich milk.

And rich milk makes healthy babies.

And healthy babies, they grow up into fine healthy men and women

to make strong, the poor country.

Don't believe me, I understand your problem perfectly.

However, although the answer to it seems obvious,

filing on land in Sunbeam Valley,

I have a feeling that the big ranchers who use Sunbeam Valley is open range for years

and years aren't going to want dairy farms and fences.

Why should we not be welcome?

Ventures have children too, and children with milk and butter and cheese we make.

If my memory serves me, there are other things you days make that aren't exactly dairy products.

I remember drinking a delightful brandy made from cherries,

which was supposed to be a Danish drink.

Cherokee, I've got a good notion that quench your thirst right now with my two hands.

Look, I tell you what I think, Mr. Remington,

you gather up all of your neighbours and all their belongings,

start heading for Sunbeam Valley just as soon as you get.

Then you change your mind.

You are not going to help us get the land.

Not at all, Mrs. Remington.

But to help save time before your cows are completely dried up,

Cherokee and I'll go ahead and see the land agent,

the government just sent out from Washington,

to handle the claims and file the maps.

Good idea, Chad?

That way, by the time the Newtons and their families get the Sunbeam Valley,

we ought to have their home feds all ready for them to move in on.

It was a good idea, but like so many good ideas,

it didn't work the way we'd planned it.

Principally because at that time, although we knew someone was interested

in the Exodus of the Dairy Farmers,

we didn't know about the principal rancher in Sunbeam Valley,

Doc Slaven, and his pet trained gunslinger, whose handle was Sinkall.

You know, they had plans too.

Plans are very quickly put into effect.

Okay, Sinkall, hold it.

Here's a new land off.

Oh, you, who?

If you not had to done what I told you to,

and kept that lawyer out of this, we wouldn't have to be doing this now.

But Doc, I told you how reminiscent.

Shut up and stay shut up.

Otty, you're the land agent.

Yes, sir, I am.

Something I can do for you.

Sure is.

Well, I'm Doc Slaven.

I own the biggest spread around here, the lazy JD.

I also represent all the other ranchers in this section.

Yeah, if you play them.

We don't want no farmers in here.

What's more, we ain't letting them in.

Oh, is that so?

Well, you listen to me if I can.

You're going to listen, my friend.

I said, we ain't letting no dairy men nor no farmers in here

with our blasted fences.

Just to make this thing look legal,

we're filing for all them homesteads ourselves,

using dummies names.

Mr. Slaven, no one is filing without my consent.

And as far as you're concerned,

I'm going to report this little conversation

to the United States Marshall and El Paso.

Oh, you are, right?

I'm most assuredly am.

That gun you're fingering doesn't scare me one bit.

My friend, you got just about five seconds to change in mind.

And if you don't,

there's going to be a new land agent here starting right now.

Well, you can't bluff me, Slaven.

Oh, you think this is bluffing, huh?

All right.

I think, oh, when you're through with our friend,

there is going to be a new land agent,

and it's going to be me.

Why you found out?

Oh!

Oh!

Now, take him out to the O'Royer

and cover him up good, Slaven.

Oh, I'm staying here and waiting for Remington.

If he wants to talk to the land agent,

he's your agent at this point, isn't it?

Ha, ha, ha, ha.

We'll return to the second act of thunder over Texas,

our exciting frontier town adventure in just a few moments.

And now, Frontier Town.

Well, as you found out,

and we found out later,

Doc Slaven and his bodyguard Sinko

were a couple of upstanding citizens, all right.

They should have been upstanding on a scaffold.

But the murder would say perpetrated so cold bloodedly

was only hair for the meanness and corruption

in Doc Slaven's system.

The very idea that he and a few of the cattle barons

like him on the west was a feeling that were shared by others,

one which would have to be,

I don't mean to get on this soapbox about this.

So, well, before I start overflowing again,

let's get back to where we left off.

When Cherokee and I left the Newtons,

they were well on their way to round up their neighbors,

packing their wagons,

and heading up the trail,

which Cherokee and I took several hours before.

The trail to Sunbeam Valley.

Chad, I don't want to have to quibble with you,

but this whole thing seems to me to be much to do about nothing.

Oh, well, maybe it is.

Why any people would be united enough to send for a lawyer

to tell them what to do when they only path open to them

as to move is beyond me?

I have probably because they're foreign-born Cherokee

and they respect for the laws in this country

and their lack of understanding of them

makes them feel helpless.

Ah, fiddlesticks.

Why every one of us in this country

comes from a foreign-born family?

That is everyone with your patches,

the Navajo, the youth,

don't say any Cherokee.

There's no question that you have an encyclopedic knowledge

of the names of all Indian tribes,

but if you'd set your brain to more practical problems,

we may get out of this alive.

Huh?

Alive, you say?

Alive, I hope.

That's rightful in my office there today,

those shots from the cottonwards on the road.

All those happenings indicate one thing.

Some of the big cattlemen around here

figure out what the dairy farmers are going to do

and are trying to stop it before it happens.

Do you think we're writing into trouble?

Plenty of trouble.

And by Gilded Gory, why don't you let me

promote some of that Dene's friendy?

Man, need something stimulating in a time like this?

I'm afraid you're going to get your stimulation,

but not from bottles.

Oh, I got an awful hunch that this time

a stimulation is going to come out of a holster

and be served in small doses of lead.

I, boy, I just remember that I have an engagement

back in those areas.

If I get through in time, I'll be happy to be served here.

See what I can do to help.

Oh, no, you don't.

Hey, you see that little American flag

on the frame building right ahead?

That's a federal land office for the district.

All you're going to do is rain up your horse,

climb off, and go with me.

That's what I said.

I'm sticking by you through thick and thin.

Oh, there. Oh, boy.

All right, Cherokee, and see if you can't stop your knees

from shaking, huh?

Only I had time for a swig of my rattlesnake, oh.

Howdy, men.

Oh, afternoon. You the land agent?

Well, I might say that I am.

What sort of an answer is that?

You either are the land agent or you aren't?

Well, I'm the federal agent,

but I ain't got no land left.

That's what I meant.

No land left.

There are 130,000 acres here.

You ain't meaning to doubt my word, are you?

Or I'll be it from me.

I'm sorry you rode all this way for nothing.

I don't think the time was wasted.

Huh? What do you mean?

Are you sure you want me to answer that question?

Yeah, I'm sure.

Now, what do you mean?

The words are two syllables. I don't believe you.

I don't believe all the lands been teeded out.

You're calling me a liar, is that it?

It comes to the same time.

Fat, he's filling his hands.

You're a pretty fast drawer for a land agent,

but not fast enough, it seems.

Are you?

Nice clean bite, aren't you?

Using a horseshoe nail ring.

All right, you're not out that much

if you can't hear what I have to say.

Twenty families of dairy farmers are moving up here from Faust.

If we've got even half a law left in this country

they're going to get homesteads and settle on them.

And if you or anyone else like you has any different ideas

you're going to have a fight on your hands that'll make

Gettysburg look like a Sunday school picnic.

Come on, Cherokee.

I want to meet Mr. Newton for they hit snake skin past.

Chad, for the life of me, I don't understand

what your tactics are.

I'll grant you the man in that office certainly was a rancher.

Not anyone who'd be sent out here from Washington.

I'm glad you agree with me about one thing.

Why in the name of all outdoors you tell him

the route the Newtons were taken.

But you realize that if he is a rancher

you'll have a hundred guns of slingers out at snake skin pass

and blast a lot of them.

Us right off of the map.

That, my friend, is a general idea.

Now look, suppose we prove this man's an imposter.

And somehow or other he's gotten rid of the real land agent.

Yeah?

Would that stop the other big ranchers

and the cowforks working for them

from attacking that wagon train coming in here

and wiping it off the map?

No, I guess not, but I don't mind a fight.

And I don't think God Danish American friends do either.

Just to make it slightly equitable,

I thought it'd be a good idea to know

when they were going to hit and where.

But great, you're the glory man.

You might as well save it, Cherokee.

I'm saving whatever breath I've got left

to talk to brother Newtson and his friends

and to get him to play it my way.

Believe me, with people like that,

my job isn't going to be easy.

All right, get up there, you come on.

No, please, please.

We ask Mr. Remington to give help for us.

And if it's only right,

we should listen to what he has to say.

You go ahead, Mr. Remington.

I'm sure everyone wants to hear your advice.

Well, Mr. Newtson,

let me go on by admitting that

what I'm about to suggest you're doing

isn't without risk.

We have already risked everything we own,

everything we worked for,

a few more risks now.

What difference does that make?

Hello, I suppose it has a lawyer.

I should suggest settling all of this through the courts,

but as a lawyer,

I know that by the time we could get any court action,

your herds of dairy cattle would be the dry or dead.

Already our cows are drying up.

If we don't soon do something,

we will be worse than the cows.

Very well.

As I told you,

I'm as sure as I can be without proof

that the real land agent has been killed.

And the man Cherokee and I saw

is an imposter, a rancher

posing as a land agent.

That's contemptible and ordinary and a ferious,

no good as ever I've planned my eyes on.

And since we can't prove the crime,

since to get you into Sunbeam Valley,

we have to defeat all the opposition,

I'm simply proposing that we try to catch them

in another crime,

and jail a lot of them for that

or bury them where they're for.

If it's a fight to suggest,

we are not afraid to fight.

No, no, no, I'm not suggesting a fight

although it may turn into one,

but since if I'm right,

they're expecting you at Snake Skin Pass,

I say let's round up all the fuses

and dynamite we can lay hands to

and give those buzzards a noisiest welcome,

a crowd of selfish

and contemptible ranchers ever had.

All right, all right.

Very good.

Then get back on those wagons

and don't stop knocking on those horses

until we're at Snake Skin Pass.

Hey, look, Doug,

that must be them dairy farmers coming now.

See that long string of wagons

just heading up the grade into the pass?

Yeah, same, all right.

But I wonder what happened to Remington

and that partner of his.

And the way they talked,

I thought they'd be out front

like a couple of kid costs.

Now who cares where he is?

I care.

But I got a little unfinished business

with that loud mouthful lawyer.

Wow, and that ain't getting a snow place.

All right, boys.

Get out them six guns and rifles

and let's go.

Don't spread out your fools.

Keep together.

So we can pour the lead into them.

Hey, boss.

Hey, doc, you see what happened?

Two blasts went off.

One at either end of the pass.

And we're bottled in here like goldfish in a bowl.

Hey, you.

You down there.

Can you hear me?

What the?

Where's that voice coming from?

Who is it?

I say who it is.

It's Remington.

Way up on top of the pass on that rock.

Yeah, Remington, I hear you.

What do you want?

I want you and the rest of those

pride-gunshin vultures with you?

Dead or alive?

To haul to the nearest federal jail?

We'd rather take your life

but we haven't gotten any

struples against taking your dead.

Well, jeepers, boss.

You know what?

We rode into a trap.

You aren't going to take us, Remington.

It ain't going to be a lie.

You're being an awful fool, my friend.

The wagons you're blocking the pass

up ahead of you.

And they're bristling with guns

like a porcupine.

The rest of us are up here behind the rocks.

Or you can't even nick us.

And we've got you just like certain ducks.

You're bluffing going to work, Remington.

If you want us, come and get us.

If you think I'm going to stand here

and make a target of myself, Slaven,

you've got another thing coming.

They start triggering them rifles and earnest

and they've got every one of us plums henner.

All right.

It's getting dark.

We're not going to wait till we can't see you anymore.

You've got exactly one minute

to drop those guns in a heap down there

and start walking toward the wagon single file.

Well,

ten seconds are gone now.

I'm not being carried out of here feet first.

Anybody else?

You can do what you want, Slaven.

I know when I'm licked.

And that goes for me, too.

Come on, boys.

If Slaven wants to stay here, that's his business.

All right, Mr. Nooshin.

Here they come.

Now get the ropes out.

We brought them on with us and tie up a lot of them.

And maybe you don't found any on poucats in this county

but we're bringing them mess on them anyhow.

Mr. Remington, if only you come back in a few months.

After we've got everything settled,

then we give you a good party.

Oh, mum and Nooshin,

you don't know what a party this one is.

But not only if I eat and hold playful of your cookies already,

but I've had four glasses of milk.

Milk?

I didn't already know that cows are stupid.

All the proof I'd need would be to taste the liquid they produce.

After we unpack, maybe I can find you some cherry brandy

I bring from all country.

That's real Danish drink.

We'll old fashioned way of celebrating.

Now wait a minute, Cherokee.

You know you don't like old fashioned things.

Look what happened at that dance you attended

the lady's auxiliary gave in dos rios a few months ago.

Oh yes, well I met that beautiful flexing head blonde.

She was an old fashioned.

Oh, I don't know.

First you dance an old fashioned shardish with it,

then an old fashioned polka,

and finally an old fashioned mosaic.

That sounds nice of what happened out to that Cherokee.

What could happen after that, madam?

After three old fashioned,

did you take care of the young lady home?

You

Frontier town, starring Tex Chandler

and featuring Wade Crosby as a Bruce L's production.

Story and Direction by Paul Franklin.

Music written and played by Ivan Dittmarks.

Be sure to be with us again same time next week

for another fine action adventure story

with your favorite young western star, Tex Chandler.

Music

And now this is Bill Foreman telling you

that Frontier town came to you from Hollywood.

Music

Music

This has been a presentation of OTRwesterns.com

and we hope you enjoyed.

Please take some time to like and rate our shows

in your favorite podcast application.

Follow us on Facebook by going to OTRwesterns.com

slash Facebook subscribe to our YouTube channel

by going to OTRwesterns.com slash YouTube

and send us an email podcast at OTRwesterns.com

You can call and leave us a voicemail 707-986-8739.

This episode is copyright under the attribution

non-commercial share-like copyright.

For more information go to OTRwesterns.com slash copyright.

Have a great day and thanks for listening.

Music