Author’s note: In my last story, Bound to Happen, I introduced five characters: Booty Blevins, field trial scout; Ike Eanes, Booty’s employer; Richard Brammer, owner of Bent Pine Pat, pointer female just qualified for the National Championship only to be found dead by Booty in her kennel box; and Bent Pine Molly, Pat’s look alike littermate and lead wagon dog on Bent Pine Plantation who as Pat’s impostor won the 2024 National Bird Dog Championship only to be exposed and disqualified, resulting in the banning of Ike, Booty and Richard from field trials. This is the second in a series of stories featuring these characters, save poor Pat, living over the Rainbow Bridge.
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Thanks to Booty Blevins’ smart planning, he and Ike Eanes were now employed on Bent Pine Plantation, Ike as Manager and head dog and horse man and huntsman, Booty as Ike’s assistant. They were replacing others who had accepted similar positions on other Yankee quail plantations in the Spring Shuffle of 2024.
Richard Brammer had one unfulfilled ambition, to gain membership in the Georgia-Florida Field Trial Club, an exclusive by invitation club for owners of quail plantations between Albany and Tallahassee. Richard had great influence in financial circles everywhere, having led leading venture capital and private equity firms based in Boston before his retirement. But in two years living retired at Bent Pine he had yet to gain membership. He was recently told by a sage of the quail belt that his best chance at admission lay in a large contribution to Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy Foundation for its endowment.
Being by nature loth to let go of his own hard earned (in his mind) and justly inherited dollars (he followed religiously the family mantra so oft heard in Boston, Thou Shalt Not Spend the Principal), Richard racked his brain for a way to get credit for a donation that did not reduce his principal. Not surprisingly, it was Booty who had the winning idea.
“Mr. Richard, how ‘bout you donate a quail hunt for two over Molly to be auctioned off before the Tall Timbers Foundation Naturalists Ball, its coming up soon.” This gala preceded the annual Owners Trial (called the Yankee Trial by Crackers, People of Color and other southern-born locals) held every Presidents Day.
Molly had become an outlaw celebrity in the quail belt, that fertile narrow region between Albany and Tallahassee, also the venue of the Georgia-Florida Club. Many in the region coveted a hunt over Molly. But soon Richard was thinking bigger about a bidders pool. He would tap the Billionaires Club of Silicon Valley Founders he and his firms had made through seed capital and later capital raises that took them from Startup to Unicorn (private company valued a $1 billion+) to the NYSE. Richard had two Mad Genius types in mind that owed him big time. And in their new super affluence they were hungry for new sporting adventures.
Ardley Grant (birth name Edward Bain) founded an AI (artificial intelligence) development firm. Daniel Morse (birth name Manny McBride) founded a social media firm now all the rage with Gen Z. Both were intensely competitive and thanks to Richard, close friends. He introduced them to tennis and golf. Now they made monthly trips to exotic golf courses in one or the other’s Gulfstream and played twice weekly singles tennis matches at their Palo Alto tennis club. Having each moved from President to Chairman they had time (and money) on their hands.
To the amazement of all except Richard, they bid $1 million for the quail hunt over Molly at Bent Pine Plantation. They did it on line, of course. Next Richard met them at the Holland & Holland store at 10 East 40th Street in NYC to be outfitted (neither had ever fired a shotgun, much less owned one).
Three hours later they walked out with matching twenty-gauge side-by-side London Best quail guns bearing the H&H logo (similar guns in sixteen and twelve gauge were ordered for later delivery). Their chauffeur carried boxes containing light weight togs suitable for Georgia quail shooting with just enough blaze orange trim for safety. Richard would provide them broke-in snake boots.
Richard had included a day of shooting instruction in the bid package, coaches Booty and Ike. Booty met them at the Albany Airport in a van bearing the Bent Pine Logo and delivered them and their gear to the big house forty minutes later. They enjoyed a quiet cocktail hour and dinner with Richard and were early to bed. Ike and Booty met them at the front door at nine in the morning and transported them to the shooting range, equipped with skeet field, trap range, sporting clays range and five stand. They began with a safety lecture delivered by Ike with occasional editorial comments by Booty.
Next each gun got a separate lecture and demonstration on the mechanics of his shotgun, one delivered by Booty, the other by Ike. Richard was not present: he knew instinctively he should not be there.
They worked on shooting instruction until dark, skipping lunch. Then they drove to the big house and entered the gun room, equipped as a bar for after-hunt libations, where Richard waited. The pupils had fired over a case of shells each. Ike and Booty each had one weak drink, then left promising to pick up the shooters for the hunt at nine in the morning.
They drove to the tack room to confer. Ike said, “This will never work.” Booty, as usual, had a plan. “We will have them both on the wagon. They will shoot one down at a time. You will flush. I will be a few steps behind you, on your left. I will have the boss man’s 28 gauge. They will be shooting blanks. We will tell them I have a gun to shoot cripples.
“My first job was shooting like this for plantation guests who couldn’t hit a bird. I learned quick how to watch them shoot and time my trigger squeeze to be same as theirs. They won’t know I’ve shot.”
“It will never work,” Ike said.
“Let’s try. You will see,” said Booty.
They did not tell Richard in advance. He rode on the wagon seat with the wagon driver and handled the cocker.
On each covey rise Booty shot a double and Ardley or Daniel fired two blanks and thought he got a double. They had their limits at noon. Molly starred, pointing covey after covey. The cocker riding on the seat beside Richard and the wagon driver retrieved them all to the wagon and dropped them in the basket at Richard’s feet.
They returned to the big house for lunch. At three Booty delivered Ardley and Daniel to the airport and watched the Gulf Stream lift off.