From the writer and producer of “A Sportsman’s Paradise” brings you “The Man in the Black Derby Hat," a collection of stories about William "Bat" Masterson.
The first chapter entitled “Bartholomew and the Fair Maiden” is a three-part series into the real and tragic love story between William Masterson and Mollie Brennan. The story tells how William “Bartholomew” Masterson after leaving the buffalo hunting fields takes a job as a teamster hauling supplies between Fort Dodge and Fort Supply. It is at Fort Supply where Masterson first meets his nemeses a Corporal Melvin King. King is chased out of Fort Supply while William Masterson and 106 freighters lead by Billy Dixon move provisions to the new fort cantonment located along Sweetwater Creek. During their travel on the Jones and Plummer Trail, Masterson ruminates the “Battle of Buffalo Wallow.”
Masterson’s story of the Battle of Buffalo Wallow becomes interrupted by the fierce winter storm of December 16, 1874. Only a few freighters make it through the snow storm, forcing Masterson to spend the remainder of the winter at Fort Elliot where he meets Ben Thompson.
In part two Bat Masterson and Ben Thompson enter the Lady Gay Saloon in Mobeetie, Texas where Bat Masterson meets Mollie Brennan for the first time. The story conveys Mollie's first-hand account of the assassination of Phil Cole by Wild Bill Hickok when she was in Abilene Kansas.
Part three takes place on a quiet January morning in 1876 in the town of Mobeetie, Texas where Bat Masterson and Mollie Brennan are enjoying time together. The enjoyment between them becomes broken when Mollie witnesses Melvin King enter Charlie Norton’s Saloon the place where Mollie works. Bat Masterson decides to escort Mollie to her place of work and confront King of his abusive behavior.
Part three of chapter one provides the real and tragic love story between Bat Masterson and Mollie Brennan and once conveyed will be everlasting in memory of a courageous act of ones sacrifice in the name of love.
Chapter Two “The Battle of the Plaza” is the retelling of the gunfight between Bat Masterson, A.J.Peacock, and Al Updegraff. The story begins on April 15, 1881, after Bat Masterson living in Arizona is telegraphed by an unknown informer, notifying Bat that his brother Jim was about to be assassinated by the co-owner of the Lady Gay, Jim Masterson's partner.
Bat takes a train to Dodge City and arrives on the April 16 noon train but decides to get off early suspecting he might encounter resistance at the train depot.
The Battle of the Plaza takes the reader deep into the conflict surrounding the feud between Jim Masterson and A.J. Peacock over the Lady Gay Saloon.
The story provides a first-person account of a perpetual conflict between the Masterson's and the leading citizens of Dodge City. The gunfight begins to unfold the night before at the Long Branch Saloon when George a local cowboy inquires about the ongoing conflict between Jim Masterson and A.J. Peacock.
The Battle of the Plaza, reveals many legends of the old west to include the characterization of Bat Masterson, A.B. Webster, Tom Nixon, Pat Sughrue, Fred Singer, and Jim Masterson.
