After Ben Reach read it on the internet he said to Sam at Breakfast next morning at Millie’s Diner, “It was bound to happen eventually. I wonder if it has happened before and no one ever knew.”
The “it” was this. And the “it” has a long and short version. The short one: the National Champion bird dog of 2024 was discovered to be an impostor.
The long version was ….
Booty Blevins arrived at the kennel as usual at 6 AM for the morning cleanup. When Pat did not meet him at the gate of her run, and did not respond to his call to her, he entered and walked to her box. She lay dead on her side in her box. There was no sign of a cause.
With his cell phone he pushed the speed dial for his boss, Ike Eanes. The phone rang three times and a sleepy voice said, “Hello.”
“Pat is dead. She was layin’ in her box,” said Booty.
Ike heard it and thought first he was dreaming. But reality quickly set in. Thirty seconds of silence followed as Ike gathered his senses. Then, “Don’t move her. I’m comin’.”
Tears were streaming down Booty’s cheeks when Ike arrived in five minutes. The old scout was sitting on her inverted water bucket, his hand reaching in the box and resting on her now cold head. He stood so Ike could see in the box.
“Put her on the seat of my truck,” Ike said.
Her body lay on the seat between them as Ike drove the ten miles to Doc Bill Clarke’s clinic on the outskirts of Selma. Booty carried her in in his arms. Doc and his two female white-jacketed technicians and his receptionist were standing in the reception room, not a dry eye among them. Ike had called ahead.
Doc took her body from Booty’s arms and carried her to the stainless steel topped table in the center of his surgery room. He lifted her eyelids, first the right, then the left.
“Likely heart failure. You want an autopsy?” Doc asked.
“Her owner does.” Ike had called Richard Brammer on the drive to Doc’s office.
Richard Brammer, originally of Boston, Mass, had retired two years ago to his quail plantation outside Thomasville, Georgia, in his family four generations. Richard had shot flying game and fly fished on every continent, and had sponsored all-age bird dogs on the circuit thirty years. He had always wanted to own a National Champion bird dog, and Pat was his current candidate. Ike and Booty had qualified her a week ago. It was December 20, 2023.
Doc Clarke called Ike at seven that evening after completing Pat’s autopsy.
“As I suspected, heart failure, a defective valve she’d had since birth.” Ike thanked Doc Clarke who closed the conversation with, “I am sorry. I’ll get you a written report for her owner by the weekend.”
That night at eight Richard Brammer called Ike, who was getting ready for bed. Richard was about to go into dinner, having been listening to Fox News and drinking vodka martinis in anger since six.
“I want you and Booty over here at eight tomorrow morning. Bring three horses saddled, including my Blue.” (Blue was a walking horse Ike kept for Richard to ride at trials, co-owned by Richard and another of Ike’s dog owner’s, though neither Richard nor the other dog owner knew of the co-ownership).
Ike and Booty arrived at Bent Pine Plantation at 7:30 and unloaded the horses at the kennels. Richard Brammer drove up in a golf cart five minutes later.
“Get Molly,” Richard ordered, and swung up on Blue.
Molly was Pat’s littermate. Ike and Booty had them both as derbies in North Dakota. Richard had bought them from a Kentucky farmer. When they came home first of October Richard asked, “Want either one for the trial string?”
Ike said Pat, Booty said Molly. Ike was the boss, so Pat it was. Both agreed they were both talented. And they were nearly identical, solid white with only a few orange flecks on their ears.
That was five years ago. Pat had won some on the circuit, finally coming first in a second hour all-age to qualify for the National. Molly had proved an excellent wagon dog on Bent Pine.
It was Wednesday, day off for the hunt crew on Bent Pine. Richard said,
“Turn Molly loose on the first hunting course and pretend you are at the Ames Plantation”.
Two hours later, they picked Molly up.
“I think she can do it,“ said Booty in response to Richard’s question. Ike nodded agreement.
So Molly went home to Selma with Ike and Booty. Richard told the hunt team on Bent Pine he had lent Molly to a business partner in South Texas for his hunt truck string.
Richard’s head dog man on Bent Pine was perplexed. Molly was Richard’s (and every guest’s) favorite wagon dog. Why would he do that?
Ike and Booty had sixty days to ready Molly for a three-hour heat on the Ames Plantation. She did not disappoint them. At the end of six weeks Ike said to Booty after a workout, “I think you made the right choice between Pat and Molly when we got ‘em home from North Dakota.”
Booty said nothing but thought, yea, and not the first or last time I was right when I tried to tell you something and you wouldn’t listen. The two disagreed often but Booty mostly ignored their disagreements. Ike didn’t lack self confidence in his own judgment, especially about bird dogs, which differed from Booty’s more often than Ike knew.
They drew Monday morning of the second week at the National. Of course weather could move that. But it didn’t. It had rained hard the Sunday before she came to the line, braced with a male pointer named Ace of Spades, white with a solid black head. He took a liking to Molly from the moment they were released and began to trail her.
In five minutes Ace’s handler approached the judges. “The bitch is in heat.” Fortunately for Molly she had been spayed. Ace was ordered up five minutes later when he would not stop trailing Molly.
Now Molly had the courses to herself. Early in her three hours birds were feeding in the planted strips, and Molly had three quick finds, all handled well and stylishly. Then the birds disappeared. Molly’s wagon dog experience told her to dig into the woods bordering the course and there she found birds, just often enough. At two hours she had eight clean finds.
Her last hour was her best. She reached, took the edges where the breeze came to her from the woods, never left an edge before its end. Her finishing cast was spectacular, and she had a find at its end to finish with nine. Her name was called from the front porch of the Ames Manor House.
The rest was a blur for Ike and Booty.
Two days after they got home to Selma, Ike answered a call on his cell phone. He and Booty were eating supper. Beans and bacon with corn bread, Booty’s specialty.
By habit, Ike lay the phone on the table and pressed for the speaker. The voice they heard was that of the reporter at the National.
“I’m just finishing the report, and I pulled the reports of the other stakes she has won. In her first qualifying win, the report says she was drawn in season and went at the end as a bye. When was she spayed?
They could tell from the tone of his voice that they had been caught, and that their and Richard Brammer’s careers in field trials were over.
Unbeknownst to Ike, Booty had assured them jobs for as long as they wanted to work and after that a reasonable retirement. After Richard Brammer proposed substituting Molly for Pat in the National, Booty had called Richard Brammer.
“Mr. Brammer, if we get caught running Molly as Pat at the National, me and Mr. Ike will be banned from field trials. I am sure you will give us jobs at Bent Pine if that happens? “
“Of course, Booty,” Richard said (he was on his third martini).
“Would you please send me a note on that, Mr. Richard?”
Booty had to remind Richard twice before a scribbled note arrived via US Mail. It read, “If you cease field trialing for any reason, you have a standing job offer at Bent Pine Plantation.”
The note was signed, “Richard Brammer, Manager, Bent Pine Plantation LLC.
Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do