A military style compound known as Cibola Blanca is operated by a couple of notorious ex-Confederate ex-patriots Colonel Lucius Shindrow and Major Aaron Coltraine somewhere near the border between Mexico and the United States between Santa Fe and Juárez. The compound is populated with a large group of other ex-pats, Comancheros, and other assorted outlaw types.
One of the residents -- a man named Evans -- steals some money from a cabinet in the compound. When Colonel Shindrow's son, Ben, catches the robber in the act, Evans stabs Ben and escapes. Coltraine dispatches some of the men to capture Evans and bring him back to the compound. Their pursuit leads them to Santa Fe.
Doc Adams has been on a trip to attend a medical convention in San Francisco. While he is there, he runs into a former Dodge City resident named Lyla Ross. Lyla now lives in Kansas City and operates a saloon there. She had traveled to San Francisco on a shopping trip. (Traveling from Kansas City to San Francisco to go shopping in the 1870s seems a tad unrealistic.)
Doc and Lyla encountered problems finding transportation back to Kansas. They manage to get to Santa Fe, and they eventually find a stagecoach headed north. They board the stage to continue their respective journeys home. Evans, the Cibola Blanca thief who has been discovered by the men chasing him, boards the stage just before it leaves in an attempt to escape the men from Cibola Blanca.
When the stage stops at a way station, the pursuers have anticipated their arrival and are waiting. Evans is shot by one of the men named Badger. The leader of the men -- a man named Ivers -- knows Coltraine wanted Evans returned alive. When Ivers discovers one of the passengers is a doctor, he takes Doc and Lyla -- who he had already been admiring and harrassing in Santa Fe -- prisoner. They steal the stagecoach and take it and the passengers to Cibola Blanca.
Back in Dodge City (the first visit to Dodge in Season 20!), Matt Dillon receives a telegraph from Wells Fargo informing him a stagecoach that left Santa Fe has gone missing. Since Doc is now three weeks overdue from his trip, Matt assumes Doc was on board the missing stage. He sends a telegraph to Hays City requesting a deputy as soon as possible. Matt, Festus Haggen, and Newly O'Brien set out for Santa Fe to investigate the situation. Their investigation reveals information about the compound, but the exact location is unknown.
Matt devises a plan to find the compound by having the trio to pose as gun runners with a supply of guns stolen from the U. S. Army. They make their way into Apache country south of Santa Fe. It does not take long for Matt, Newly, and Festus to encounter a group from Cibola Blanca led by Ivers. After a tense situation where Matt, Festus, and Newly gain the advantage, Ivers offers to take them back to the compound if they will agree to sell their supply of guns to Colonel Shindrow.
Harold Gould portrays Shindrow in this story. Gould only appeared in one other Gunsmoke episode way back in Season 10's "Doctor's Wife" episode. Gould had quite an extensive acting career, primarily in television.
Given how ubiquitous actor Richard Anderson was in television of the 1960s and 1970s, it is a little surprising this episode is only Anderson's third appearance on Gunsmoke. He plays former Confederate Major Aaron Coltraine in this story.
Former Ford model Dorothy Tristan has the unenviable task of playing the part of the Lyla character, which was originally written with Amanda Blake's Kitty Russell character in mind. Tristan's acting career has been sporadic. This is her first television show acting credit.
James Luisi makes his sole Gunsmoke appearance as the especially nasty Ivers character. Luisi was a former professional basketball player with the Boston Celtics before he began his acting career in the early 1960s. He appeared in several episodes of The Rockford Files as Lt. Doug Chapman. He played various characters in several television dramas in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, including recurring roles in different daytime soap operas.
Perennial bad guy Rex Holman makes his final series appearance here as the character known as Badger. His appearance here is his sixteenth in the series.
Renowned playwright Michael Cristofer is another actor making his only Gunsmoke appearance in this story. He portrays the seriously wounded Ben Shindrow, who becomes a key character during the second part of the episode. Although he has enjoyed numerous accolades for his writing skills, Cristofer continues to accept select acting roles today. He has appeared in recurring roles in the AMC series Rubicon, Showtime's Ray Donovan, USA Network's Mr. Robot, and several other series.
A few additional familiar faces appear in this episode. Henry Beckman returns for the fourth and final time (fourth and fifth since this is a two-part episode) in the series. He plays Dr. Rhodes, a useless doctor-in-residence at Cibola Blanca who spends most of his time in an opium-induced stupor.
Gloria LeRoy, who often played loud, boisterous women, returns for the second and final time. She portrays Mady, who resents Lyla's presence in the compound and becomes her rival.
Shug Fisher makes his twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh appearance in the series, this time as the character credited only as "Mule Skinner." Fisher's character provides Matt with information that leads him to Cibola Blanca. Lloyd Nelson served as the Script Supervisor for Gusnmoke beginning with Season 16. He also appeared in small rolls in several episodes, including this one. He plays the character Dundee. Jackie Coogan, whose career began as a child actor and extends back to 1917, portrays Marshal Stoudenaire in his only Gunsmoke role. Coogan appeared in hundreds of television shows throughout a career that filled most of his life. Fisher, Nelson, and Coogan only appear in the first part of this two-part episode.
This is the episode that at least partially led to Amanda Blake's departure from Gunsmoke. When Blake read the script for this episode, she refused to participate. It required going on location and significant physical work, two things Blake detested. According to several people associated with Gunsmoke, Executive Producer John Mantley subsequently fired Blake, although many people close to the actress said she was ready to leave the show. (According to the official reports at the time, Blake chose to quit the show.)
This script was written by Paul Savage and was originally titled "The Comancheros." Savage intended the Kitty Russell character to play a key role in the story. After learning Blake would no longer be part of the cast, Savage assumed the episode would be abandoned. Much to his surprise (and disappointment? -- the disappointment was implied in interviews Savage did later), the part was rewritten to make the character a woman named Lyla who was one of Doc's old friends who lived in Dodge City at some point. With this knowledge, and given the fact that Lyla is a saloon owner in Kansas City, it is easy to see how the part of Lyla was intended to be the Kitty Russell character.
As usual, part one of this episode establishes the details of the story to be further addressed in the second part. This is an unusually complex story with a lot of moving parts.
When Doc is asked to examine Shindrow's injured son, he finds the young man is dying and paralyzed for whatever life remains. Colonel Shindrow does not receive this news well, and lashes out at Doc. As a result, Doc is relegated to sleeping with animals in the stables.
Doc and Lyla are forced to work in the compound in what amounts to slave labor. Lyla is repeatedly bullied by a jealous compound resident named Mady. Eventually, the two engage in a physical fight that leaves both women battered. Ivers was first attracted to Lyla when he saw her with Doc in Santa Fe. After the altercation with Mady, Ivers brutally rapes Lyla, an act for which Doc swears he will exact revenge. In the second part of the story, it is implied that Ivers continues to force Lyla to have sex with him after the initial assault.
As part one ends, Doc and Lyla are trapped in a hellish existence where they are treated like animals (or worse). Matt, Festus, and Newly are taken into the compound under the guise of selling the weapons in their possession to Shindrow and Coltraine.
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