Written by CLAIR HUFFAKER Directed by STUART HEISLER Guest Cast LOUISE FLETCHER as Betty Horgan DONALD BUKA as Cole Hawkins RUSSELL JOHNSON as Wade Horgan               Dan Troop has an Encounter with Louise Fletcher

 Johnny brings a wire with word that Cole Hawkins and Wade Horgan have killed two men up in Casper.  Dan, needing to leave some law in town, heads after them alone.

Are we going after them?

I am

Alone?

Before he ever catches up to the outlaws, Dan runs into big trouble in the form of a marauding bear.  Animal stunt work being what it was in those days, the bear attack was not the highlight of this episode.

Making camp

but not alone

Bear Attack

Lucky for Dan, Wade Horgan's sister Betty has seen the attack.   Seeing his badge, she's torn between her compassion for a man she just saw fight so bravely for his life and her natural dislike of lawmen gained from a year on the run with her brother.

Betty Horgan to the rescue?

You gonna pull that trigger?

I do what I wanna do.

Betty brings Dan back to her cabin where she practices the nursing skills she doesn't actually use as Nurse Ratched in her later incarnation.  She says she threw his badge away because she hates the sight of a badge.  But she'll tell her brother when he returns.  No man's worth sticking her neck out for.

You decided not to shoot me.

Maybe I ought to have. I'm Betty Horgan

Don't you have the sense to be scared?

However, when Wade and Cole do return, she covers for Dan.  She says he claims to be a cowhand but she thinks he's on the dodge.  The next morning Wade decides to find the bear Dan put so many bullets in.  They're low on supplies and could use the meat.  Before he leaves Wade lets her know he wants her to have whatever she wants.  However, when she asks him to take Cole with him, he refuses.

Cole & Wade  return

Dan listens to hear his fate

Betty covers for Dan

Betty has reason to be leery of Cole.  He seems to be getting over the fear that Wade will kick his butt for messing with his sister.  When he starts to force himself on her, Dan struggles to get up to intervene.

Cole Hawkins

Cole gets pushy

Unwisely pushy

Dan  manages to slam a wooden stool onto Cole.  Betty grabs her rifle and sends him packing.  Dan is worried that Cole isn't finished.

Furniture as a weapon

The rifle is the final word

He'll be back

While he's out looking for the bear, Wade finds Dan's horse.  In a saddlebag, he finds a set of shackles and some paperwork that exposes Dan's identity.  He and Cole return to the cabin bent on killing him.  Just before they arrive, Betty asks Dan if she manages to get him out alive, will he take her with him.  As he is about to answer, she hears the two men ride up.   She goes to the door and lets them know she isn't going to let them in.

Incriminating saddlebag

Take me with you.

Stop right there

When they insist on coming forward anyway, Betty shoots her brother.  Cole, using the falling Wade as a shield, shoots Betty.  She falls on the table and with her last strength, tosses the rifle to Dan.

You can't have him

Wade goes down; Cole shoots

Betty gets the rifle to Dan

Dan takes out Cole as he comes through the door.  He then holds the dying Betty in his arms.

He shoots

He scores

You would have taken me away from here?

As she's dying, she asks him if he would have taken her with him.  He says he would have.  Back in Laramie, Johnny exclaims.  "Marshal, you got hurt."  Dan is silent a moment, and then says "Yeh, I did." in a way that says his pain is more than physical.  Johnny looks after him in a way that says he knows there's more to the story.

Yes.

"Marshal, you got hurt!" "Yeh, . . . I did."

Johnny knows there's more to it

NiteOwl Review:  "The Encounter" is a must for John Russell collectors as well as for Louise Fletcher fans.  This episode has a simple plot, well executed.  Despite the fact that his life depends on Betty's good will, Dan doesn't curry favor or make false promises.  He's as taciturn as always.  But she sees in him a quality she's never seen in a man before.  She's hungry for him to respond to her, to validate her [to lapse into psycho-babble].  She's a woman who's never had a chance for a decent life and now she sees what that life could be.  We had one quibble.  When the two men approach to take Dan, why doesn't she kill Cole first?  Her brother clearly loved her and probably wouldn't have shot her.  Cole was just plain evil.  Dan was too badly hurt to have gone after Wade if he took off.  Of course, then Betty wouldn't have been shot.  Women who fall in love with lead characters in TV Westerns most always have to get killed one way or another.

Russell Johnson & Louise Fletcher
[The Professor & Nurse Ratched]

Cast Notes:  Despite her lengthy filmography, Louise Fletcher, will always be best known for her Academy Award winning performance as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.   For us, a close second was her outstanding turn as Vedek Winn in Deep Space Nine.   And it's always interesting to see her early work in which she didn't make your skin crawl. [We recommend this unofficial Louise Fletcher Tribute Site.]  Another familiar face in this episode is Russell Johnson who played the most neglected, but most "normal" of the Gilligan's Island castaways, The Professor Johnson actually had credible Western credentials prior to being forever typecast as one of the Gilligan Seven.  Johnson has a website at www.russell-johnson.com/  We recommend an excellent article on Johnson in the first issue of Wildest Westerns Magazine.  See www.wildestwesterns.com  The first two issues are available through the website.  Issue three is scheduled to feature Robert Fuller.  The photo below is the title photo for an extensive article on Russell Johnson with lots of additional photos.
Copyright Wildest Westerns Magazine
 

To Lawman Episode Seventeen

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