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Piney Biggs (Yaphet Kotto) comes across a massacre of people that was connected to a wagon train. All the people had been killed including women and children. While Piney is scavenging around he finds a pocket watch that plays music. Thinking he could sell this at a later date he puts it in his pocket. About that time about ten Indians come up on the scene. Piney stabs himself so that he will look like one of the dead as the Indians look around. One of the Indians takes the pocket watch from Piney and rides away with the item. When they have all gone, Piney gets up and goes for help.

Later after getting medical attention by Doc, Piney tells Marshal Dillon that the massacre was done by the group of Indians that took his watch. When a reward was set up, a group of hunters come across the Indians and one ever has the stolen watch. They bring the Indians back to Dodge for the reward money.

Piney Biggs, a black man, is now tore between having people prosecuted as his people have been done for years- or saying nothing and let the hunters collect and the Indians die.

With Piney's wife, Rachel (Cicely Tyson), having a baby- Piney goes to tell the Marshal's office to stop the morning hanging of the Indians. But before he can get there the hunters led by Colley (Slim Pickens) hold Piney until the time the Indians will hang. With a innocent newborn coming into the world Piney will have no other option but to let innocent people die.

At the beginning of the episode, I was not happy on how the part of Piney was being played. Yaphet Kotto was playing him in an almost shy, meek manner that is unworthy of the actor or the plot. But after the show had ended it was obvious that the part was done to perfection. Cicely Tyson and Slim Pickens were also cast well for the parts played adding much to the story.. In all the story was interesting and a good watch for viewers.

Piney Biggs is an exhausted, desperate Black man looking for sustenance when he staggers upon an encampment of people that have been massacred. He manages to find some bread and water. He is wearing no shoes, and he tries to take a pair of boots from one of the dead men, but they are too small for his large feet. He notices the man has a pocket watch and takes it.

When Piney hears some voices, he notices a small group of American Indians approaching. He picks up a stray arrow, stabs himself, and pretends to be dead. When the men ride into the site of the massacre, they begin scavenging whatever they can find. One of the men notices the watch in Piney's pocket and takes it.

The men soon ride on with whatever loot they managed to find. Piney tries to remove the arrow from his side, but it breaks. With the arrow still in his body, Piney leaves the scene of the massacre. Someone driving a freight wagon finds Piney and takes him into Dodge City where Doc Adams treats his wound. Sam Noonan brings Piney an old pair of boots, and Piney discovers some money Sam had managed to collect inside one of the boots.

Matt Dillon and Festus Haggen visit Piney in Doc's office. The Marshal questions Piney about the massacre. Piney lies and tells Matt he had been taken in by the campers after his mule was stolen. He also falsely tells Marshal Dillon the band of scavengers were responsible for the massacre, and they stole a watch his father had given him. Matt tells Piney he is extremely lucky because there had been other similar incidents recently, and Piney is the only survivor of any of the massacres.

Doc tells Piney to rest and leaves him in the office. With his wound treated, a pair of boots, and some money, Piney chooses to make his way back to the shack where he lives with his pregnant wife, Rachel, and his young daughter, Merilee.

Matt and Festus organize a posse to go after the renegades. The government places a $2,000 bounty on any renegade American Indians that can be captured. Some bounty hunters led by a man named Colley find the scavengers camped and drinking liquor they found at the massacre sight. One of the scavengers is killed, but the others are taken to Dodge for the bounty. The pocket watch serves as the circumstantial evidence the captured men are responsible for the massacre.

This situation presents a dilemma for Piney. He knows the men being held for the massacre are not guilty. If he continues with his assertion that he saw the men commit the massacre, they face execution. Piney is torn between doing what he knows is right and taking the safer route of keeping his mouth shut.

A key scene in the drama occurs when Piney tries to justify his actions to Rachel. Piney tells his wife it does not matter if the wrong group of Indians is being punished, because it is said that all Indians are the same. Rachel points out that people say the same thing about Black people. Rachel is the true strength of the family. Piney is convinced to go to the Marshal's office and tell the truth about what happened.

The bounty hunters are due to be paid $2,000 for turning in the scavengers. When they learn Piney has been lying and plans to tell Newly O'Brien the truth, they hold Piney hostage until the time the scavengers are scheduled to be hanged at Fort Dodge.

The role of Piney Biggs is played by Yaphet Kotto. When this episode was filmed, Kotto was still primarily doing television work, although he had done a small amount of film work. Of course, he would go on to appear in several films, as well as continuing to work in television. Playing Piney Biggs was Kotto's only involvement in Gunsmoke. The roles he turned down are as notable as those he accepted. He was offered the part of the character Lando Calrissian in Star Wars. After he refused the part, it went to Billy Dee Williams. He was also strongly considered for the part of Jean Luc Piccard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but he removed his name from consideration out of fear of being typecast.

The fabulous Cicely Tyson appears in this story as Rachel Biggs in what is her only Gunsmoke appearance. Throughout her career, Tyson refused to play roles that did not depict Black women as positive characters. Shortly after her appearance in this episode, she would star in the film Sounder, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Slim Pickens returns to Gunsmoke after a long break. (His last appearance was as the Pony Beal character in Season 11's "Sweet Billy, Singer of Songs.") In this story, Pickens plays the bounty hunter Colley, who will go to great lengths to get the bounty money. Pickens was one of those rare actors that worked in both television and films simultaneously. Around the same time he did this episode, he also appeared in Sam Peckinpah's film The Ballad of Cable Hogue. He and Peckinpah had a long working relationship that went back to Peckinpah's short-lived, brilliant television series The Westerner in 1960. In addition to Cable Hogue, Pickens also had parts in the Peckinpah films Major Dundee, The Getaway, and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

Other notable actors that take appear in the episode include Roy Jensen as one of the bounty hunters named Rath, Eddie Little Sky as the American Indian with the scar on his face, and Jere Fields in her first credited role as Merilee Biggs.

The episode is worth viewing for the performances by Kotto and Tyson alone. The presence of Slim Pickens is a bonus. This is a different kind of story that uses a straightforward premise of a man who invents a seemingly harmless lie that quickly becomes uncontrollable and three bounty hunters that are willing to do whatever is necessary to get what they want. However, there is more simmering underneath the surface.

This is one of the earlier episodes written by Jim Byrnes, who was responsible for several excellent Gunsmoke scripts. The episode is directed by Robert Totten who directed 25 episodes of the show and played a character in eight different episodes.

Anyone closely watching this episode through most current (2021) broadcasts (MeTV and TVLand) may notice there are two times in this episode where ethnic slurs are silenced. It occurs first when Piney makes the assertion to Rachel that all Indians are the same, and Rachel replies, "They say the same thing about (silenced)." The second time is late in the episode when Colley uses a different slur while giving Newly a false account of what happened with Piney. It is noteworthy words deemed acceptable for television in 1970 are censored today. (Incidentally, the streaming service Pluto TV does not censor the dialog.)

Besides the solid story and fine acting in this episode,Composer Leon Klatzkin Should be given credit for a fine, almost avant-garde score. The percussion writing in the opening segment is truly markable! Leon Klatzkin did quite a number of gunsmoke episodes, always a craftsman producing the right mood needed for whatever's going on on the screen. Gunsmoke is notable for generally very fine scores! Now, if I could just get the robot in charge here to stop telling me that my review is too short, that I have not reached 600 characters, I could save this review and perhaps somebody could read it someday!

In the early party of the show, at the wagon massacre, the Corpse laying across the wagon beside Yaphet Kotto, changed positions 3 times, and boots! Started out legs straight out, in reddish colored boots, as if standing...THEN legs BENT, in dark colored boots....Back to reddish boots and legs sort of halfway straight......Also, later on, in the bar scene with Pickens and his gang, toward the end of the show, the paining on the wall was of The End Of The Trail. The sculpture and all subsequent art, was not created until well into the 20 th century.....I would expect the producers to be more careful about being exact.......