Sallie

“Where there is wealth there is envy.”

That was a favorite saying of both Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD, the curmudgeons. In their long years practicing law and medicine in Albany, Georgia, northern anchor of the quail belt that stretched south to Tallahassee, they had seen many examples.

Envy of the ownership of a good wagon dog often arose among owners of quail hunting estates in the quail belt.

So it was between Fred Dodge and Al Frank, owners of adjoining estates near Thomasville. Fred had a typical background for a Southwest Georgia quail hunting estate owner: his ancestors had been Boston bankers for decades and assembled the estate in 1885 from cotton farmers and turpentiners for $6 an acre. Its name was Dodge Estate, recently changed from Dodge Plantation.

Al Frank, on the other hand, got his wealth recently from Crypto Currency and bought his place from the trustee of an independent oilman gone broke thanks to the dry-up of fracking capital caused by ESG. It was known as Drillers Plantation when Al acquired it in foreclosure but taking a hint from Fred Dodge he quickly changed its name to Blockchain Estate.

Each season these neighbors invited one another for a day of quail hunting (or quail shooting as Fred Dodge called it, he having adopted the British term for harvesting flying game after traveling to Scotland for the Glorious Twelfth).

For two years, Al had been envious of a pointer bitch of Fred Dodge’s. Fred had his huntsman, Clive Wright, put her down for the opening and closing braces of their day. She was a solid white, beautifully built, choke-bore nosed forty pounder with perfect manners and a naturally forward pattern. She was a master bird finder and joy in all respects. Her name was Sallie.

Al inquired of her breeding in hopes of acquiring a sister. She was from a Kentucky breeder-developer who visited Fred each year between Christmas and New Years for two purposes: to ready his field trial string for the piney woods trials he would enter in January, and to sell Fred wagon dogs he had developed during the year just ending. Fred told Al this. He did not tell Al of his understanding with the Kentuckian: in exchange for allowing him to work dogs on his estate, he must sell no good wagon dog prospect to a neighbor of Fred.

Al acquired from the Kentucky developer an alleged younger sister of Sallie. Identical physically and in hunting pattern. Al Frank’s dog man, Ed Alvis, quickly detected a difference.

“She’s got a short nose.” Then Ed explained to Al Frank that short nose meant weak quail scenting capacity, not physical length of proboscis.

Al Frank’s dog man Ed Alvis and Fred Dodge’s, Clive Wright, were friends and confidants. There were few secrets between cracker servants of the wealthy in the quail belt.

Ed Alvis owed much to his employer Al Frank who had given him a job following a scandal when Ed Alvis had been implicated in an affair with the wife of another estate owner and fired as dog man on that estate. So Al Frank thought he could safely call on Ed Alvis to do most anything he asked. But what Al Frank asked Ed Alvis to do was too much.

He asked Ed to switch the sister of Sallie for Sallie. Ed looked at Al with incredulity.

“No, sir. That won’t work. Clive would know in a minute.” Ed said. Still, Al was obsessed with owning Sallie.

Then Sallie disappeared. She had been put down as usual in the last brace of a holiday family only hunt on Dodge Estate. At a place on the course where the hunt course ran close to a logging road, Sallie’s Garmin collar suddenly ceased to send a signal. Sallie was never seen again on Dodge Estate.

Clive Wright and Ed Alvis suspected — no, were sure, — Sallie had been shanghaied off the course by a thief. The sheriff’s deputies investigated and found faint evidence an ATV had recently come in and out from a secondary road on the logging road but no tire impressions. Sallie and her Garmin collar were gone without a trace. Sallie had an identity chip implanted but no signal from it was ever detected, sure sign the thief had it removed promptly after her theft.

A year later Al Frank was indicted for embezzlement in a crypto exchange fraud scandal and soon after the subject of involuntary bankruptcy proceedings. Ed Alvis, now unemployed and awaiting the annual Spring Shuffle among dog men on Southwest Georgia-Southeast Alabama quail estates to find his next job, paid a visit to his friend Clive Wright.

“Clive, why don’t you suggest to Mr. Dodge that he get his lawyers to check into Mr. Frank’s bankruptcy court file for clues to Sallie’s whereabouts.”

“Why you suggesting that, Ed?”

“Just a suspicion, occurred to me after news of Mr. Frank’s indictment broke. About once a month in hunting season he always flew off in his jet from the Albany airport, always had his Purdey bird gun with him. I just ran into his chief pilot, asked him where they flew to on those jaunts. He said Falfurrias, Texas. Said they were always met by a Latino driving a pickup with a dog box full of pointers and a white one sitting on the front seat. The pickup was always running and the windows up with the AC on. I figure Mr. Frank had a quail hunting lease down there and the white pointer in the front seat of the pickup was Sallie.”

Clive met with Mr. Dodge that evening and relayed Ed Alvis’ story. Next day investigators for a Texas law firm descended on the Falfurrias airport. Security video footage soon revealed the tag number of the pickup truck with the white pointer perched on its front seat.

This intelligence lead to Edwardo Salazar, an independent quail hunting guide who lived in a double wide twenty miles south of Falfurrias and guided quail hunting parties on hunting-leased sections of the King Ranch. Living with him inside the doublewide with him was Sallie. Her chip had been surgically removed, but DNA confirmed her identity and she was returned to Dodge Estate. The veterinarian patronized by Clive pronounced Sallie in good health and none the worse for wear for her south Texas adventure.

Fred Dodge sent Edwardo Salazar a note of thanks and a check for $2,000 for his good care of Sallie. Ed Alvis went to work as Clive Wright’s assistant. Fred Dodge acquired Blockchain Estate in Al Frank’s bankruptcy and consolidated it into Dodge Estate (it had once before been a part of Dodge Plantation, sold off to pay debts by the one profligate owner in Fred Dodge’s ancestral line). Ben Reach handled the purchase for Fred Dodge.