Viva (part 1): Have Gun, Will Travel (August 7, 1960)

“Viva (part 1)” is an episode of Have Gun, Will Travel, the old-time radio show, first broadcast August 7, 1960. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Paladin is hired by Father O'Toole to retrieve an organ sent from France as a gift for a small mission church on the Rio Grande. The Bishop is visiting for the first time in eight years, and the organ is meant to impress him. Paladin and Tohono, an Indian boy raised by the priest, travel to the Mexican port of Matamoros to collect the organ and bring it back through territory torn by revolution.

San Francisco in 1875 and the Rio Grande border region of Mexico, including the port of Matamoros.

Characters: Paladin, Father O'Toole, Tohono, Miss Wong, Bagshaw

Listen for: Paladin navigates Mexican bureaucracy and customs red tape to secure the organ crate for delivery to the mission.

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.