A Matter of Canes…

This is quite a long story, and I hope you have time to read all of it.  It started a few weeks ago, and hasn’t ended as of this moment.  This story is about canes, and the people who carried them.

The man above showed up in my office, at a local military base, about two weeks ago.  I was with a client, and this man appeared in my left eye – at a distance.  He was sitting back in a low chair, with his legs stretched out, ankles crossed, with his hat pushed back on his head.

He said his name was Bat Masterson.

I tried to ignore him, but he lingered too long to avoid the conversation.  He talked about the telegraph system, and what it was like to live during that era.

When I came home, I asked my husband if Bat Masterson was a real person. David stated that he was, indeed, a real person – not just a tv show from a bygone era.  David showed me a photograph of several U.S. Sheriffs and Marshals and asked me to point to the man who appeared in my office.

I pointed to the man who appeared in my office.  Sure enough – it was Bat Masterson.

Bat Masterson was known for carrying a cane.

Bat needed the cane because of an injury he received on Jan. 24, 1876. Before we get to that, you should know that Bat was a frontiersman of note. In 1874, Masterson, at 19, along with a handful of buffalo hunters, managed to hold off a superior force of Comanches led by the legendary Quanah Parker at Adobe Walls.

source: Alamogordo News

Remember that as you read further.

The next day, my neighbor called me.  She had driven by my land the day before, and told me that there was a man walking around, in my side yard, with a cane.  He had dark hair, and a mustache.  He was looking at my trees, she said.

You can only imagine how this made me feel, to hear that someone carrying a cane had been walking around in my yard – on the same day a man calling himself Bat Masterson (who also carried a cane) showed up in my office.

A few days later, I was told that Bat Masterson died while working for the Telegraph.  No wonder he was telling me about the telegraph system – he worked for it.

A week later, I was prompted to look at the items up for auction at a local business around the corner.

A cane showed up.  Just like the cane that Bat Masterson carried, with a price of 4,000 dollars.  I went to the Auction House, and asked why the price was so high.

They didn’t know.

There is a mystery going on here, in my little town on the edge of nowhere.  And, I have a feeling that it isn’t over.

Yet.