Ben got the call on his cell phone on Saturday morning, the first week in March, as he and Sam fly cast for bream from a Jon boat on a pond at Mossy Swamp Plantation.
“Mr. Ben, we been set up.” The caller was Andy Ames, a young pointing dog handler just turned pro. Ben could detect the fear and anguish in his voice.
“Who is ‘we’ Andy?” Ben said from instinct.
“Me and Mr. Harold,” Andy replied.
Mr. Harold was Harold Bain, an Atlanta auto dealer, owner of a multi-store multi-brand group. Bain owned The Salesman, a pointer in Andy’s string that was in a close race for the Purina Dog of the Year Award. Ben knew Andy was running this week at the Southeastern Open All-Age Championship just north of Albany, and was scheduled to run next week nearby at the Masters Quail Championship. The Purina Award might very well hang in the balance.
“What can I do for you, Andy?” Ben asked as he had in response to so many distress calls over his long career as a lawyer.
“Meet with me and Mr. Harold,” Andy replied without hesitation.
“Come to my office tomorrow morning at nine,” Ben said.
“Yes Sir, Mr. Ben. We will be there.”
“What the Hell was that about?” Sam asked, disgust in his voice.
“No idea, but I’ll bet it’s an interesting story,” Ben said. He was intrigued by the fear and indignation he had heard in Andy’s voice.
Ben knew Andy well, not as a client but as the grandson of a plantation manager-bird dog trainer of Ben’s generation. Fred Ames was a legend in the Quail Belt, one of the old timers of a storied tradition. There were a hundred or so World Class quail plantations between Albany and Tallahassee, each with a storied history stretching back to the late 1800s or early 1900s when wealthy northerners discovered the pleasures of wintering here and pursuing the Bobwhite quail. They bought up longleaf pine lands and cotton farms and transformed them into sporting estates on the British model. Many were still owned by descendants of the assemblers, others by modern-day Titians of the business world.
“Why don’t you join me in the morning to hear the story of the scrape Andy has got himself in?” Ben said. Sam did not know Andy, but his grandfather was a long-time patient. And Sam, like Ben, had an over-active curiosity about human nature and the jams humans could get themselves into.
“I’ll be there. Be thinking about how you can justify my hearing what Andy wants your advice about.”
“That will be easy. I’ll just tell Andy and his best customer I need your insights as a physician of long standing and as such an expert on everything.”
* * * * *
Andy and Harold Bain were parked in Andy’s dually in front of Ben’s office when he and Sam arrived there at nine Sunday morning. Ben unlocked the door, turned off the alarm system and invited the others to take a seat in the library-conference room while he made coffee. Once he had it brewing he joined them.
“Gentlemen, I think you know my pal Sam Nixon. I invited him to join us because his insights into human affairs have often helped me develop a strategy to deal with a problem. So if you don’t object to Doc’s hearing, how about telling us what your problem is.”
Andy and Harold looked at one another and Andy nodded to Harold to speak.
“Yesterday morning just after Andy turned Salesman loose in the first brace a Marshal rode up to me and said, “Mr. Bain do you mind showing me what you are carrying in your saddle bag.” He pointed to the one on the left.
“‘Nothing,’ I said without even thinking. Then the Marshal said, ‘The judges have received an allegation you have a tracker receiver in there, and asked me to ask you to show us it’s not so.’ I stopped my horse and climbed down and unbuckled the bag and to my utter surprise there was a Garmin tracker receiver in there and it was turned on.
“‘I did not put that in there. I do not own a tracker,’ I said. One of the judges rode over and asked me to give him the tracker receiver. I did what he asked. At thirty minutes Andy picked Salesman up — he wasn’t getting nothing done. When the brace was over the judges asked to see me in private. They told me they were reporting the incident to the American Field and the president of the AFTCA. “
Andy chimed in, “As you know, Mr. Ben, it’s a banned-for-life offense to use a tracker if you have a dog under judgment.”
Ben nodded that he knew the rule. He also knew the sport was rife with rumors the rule was being violated with cell phones used to get word to scouts where missing dogs were from receiver carriers riding out of sight of the gallery.
“Did the judges say who tipped them about the tracker-9receiver?” Ben asked.
“I asked, but they wouldn’t say,” Harold said.
Ben was not surprised. “Do you mind If I call one of the judges and ask him some questions,” he asked. Harold and Andy nodded assent. Ben went to his private office and made a call, but it was not to a judge. It was to John Rex Gates, the Garmin-Tritronics representative for bird dogs. He asked John Rex, the legendary handler, for an introduction to the person at the company most knowledgeable about the product and its attributes and sales channels. In minutes John Rex had arranged for Ben’s call with that person.
Then Ben called Bernie Matthys, Managing Editor of the American Field. Bernie was shocked to get a call at home on a Sunday from Ben but glad to talk with the curmudgeon. He knew he was to receive on Monday by FedEx the receiver taken from Harold Bain’s saddle bag. He also agreed to make the unit available for inspection by a Garmin-Tritronics representative in the American Field’s office in Chicago.
Ben returned to the library-conference room where the other three waited restlessly.
“I think we have made some progress, gentlemen. I hope that sometime next week we may know who planted the tracker-receiver. In the meantime I suggest you relax and enjoy the Masters. Blue Springs, Wildfair, Pineland and Nonami. That’s the prettiest trial grounds in the world. When is Salesman drawn to run?”
“Last brace,” Andy said, fear and dread in his voice.
Andy and Harold took their leave, thanking Ben and Sam for seeing them.
“What do you make of that?” Sam asked Ben.
“Not sure. But I think we will know the truth soon.”
Ben got a call from the Garmin-Tritronics product manager on Tuesday. He was able to tell Ben who had bought the unit found in Harold Bain’s saddle bag. It was not Harold or Andy. It was an individual involved with pointing dog field trials. Ben immediately called that individual and told him what he had learned and offered him a way out of the mess he had put himself in. That night Ben got a call from one of the judges of the Southeastern advising that no complaints were pending at the American Field or the AFTCA relating to the tracker-receiver affair at the Southeastern.
Ben reported to Andy and Harold, but did not tell them the culprit’s identity. He had been witness to enough ugliness born of senseless jealousy involving field trials and did not want to encourage more.
“You field trial people are nuts,” Sam Nixon MD said when Ben explained what had happened and how Ben resolved the “Tracker Affair” as the curmudgeons would come to refer to it.