Harley had recognized he had a problem soon after he regained consciousness. Lying on his back, he felt first the warm breath of Chester, his favorite dog horse, on his face. Opening his eyes, he looked up into Chester’s big kind ones. Slowly, his mind cleared.
He had no memory of hitting the hard North Dakota prairie. Perhaps Chester had stumbled, but he seldom did. His ability to see and avoid holes of all kinds had endeared him to Harley all their decade together, that and his smooth gaits, flat walk, running walk, fox trot, slow lope, canter. Chester had been a good—no, a great, dog horse.
It did not occur to Harley that he might have become unconscious while still in the saddle, which was in fact the case. He had suffered a mini-stroke at age 39. Chester had not stumbled but had stopped instantly when Harley slid from the saddle.
But on awakening Harley instinctively realized he might have to quit campaigning all-age dogs in field trials. He had done it now for eight years, ever since leaving his job on Mossy Swamp Plantation where he had worked ten years as dog and horse trainer, hoping to succeed his father in the head role as manager. He had left the security of that job because of one dog and two humans, The Partisan and Bill Blount and his wife Mary.
Blount had come to Mossy Swamp as a shooting guest of the storied quail plantation owner’s son, then an intern at one of Wall Street’s leading investment banks. Blount was a prospective customer of the bank, which hoped to manage the initial public offering of Blount’s start up-technology company that had become overnight a unicorn (a private company worth more than $1 billion, in the jargon of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, the anchors of Big Wealth held together across America, east to west, shore to shore, by the internet).
Blount’s wife Mary had been with him at Mossy Swamp and explored the Big House curtilage alone while Blount rode the shooting wagon. She came upon the puppy lot, empty save for a lone gangly pointer pup that became The Partisan, last of a litter from a favorite Mossy Swamp wagon dog female sired by an all-age champion in the string of a Kentucky pro handler who trained on Mossy Swamp in December in preparation for the piney woods segment of the trial calendar (the Georgia, Florida, Continental and after, the National, the Masters and Southeastern).
The Kentuckian offered the services of any male in his string to breed any Mossy Swamp female in gratitude for his use for training of Mossy Swamp’s courses on non-hunt days. All The Partisan’s littermates had been dispensed by Harley and his father when Mary Blount discovered The Partisan in the puppy lot.
After playing with the friendly puppy for an hour, Mary was in love with it and asked Harley if she might buy it. Mossy Swamp’s owner’s son overheard her and said, “If you want him, he’s yours”. Thus the pup left Mossy Swamp in a crate in the Blount’s Gulf Stream, bound for the West Coast with the Blounts. The following July, Bill Blount had asked Harley if he would take the pup, by then named by his wife, to North Dakota with the Mossy Swamp wagon dog pups and derbies in training. Now in hot pursuit of Blount for the IPO business for his firm (he was now an associate rather than an intern), the Mossy Swamp owner’s son told Harley to tell Blount yes.
The Partisan was by then a coming derby and Mary’s house pet and Bill Blount’s first personal bird dog. A natural, he had pointed and retrieved at six months age with a soft mouth the first pen raised quail he smelled on a California shooting preserve operated by a club Bill joined soon after his visit to Mossy Swamp. He slept at the foot of Mary and Bill’s bed, and played in the large fenced yard surrounding their mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean, going in and out at will through a dog door cut in the kitchen door.
Ten days after Harley reached his summer training grounds in North Dakota with The Partisan, Harley called Bill Blount at home, and Mary answered. “Miss Mary, you got yourself a special bird dog in The Partisan. I believe he can win any derby stake up here or down south,” Harley had said. The Partisan won first in four open derby stakes that season, including the Continental Derby Championship. Bill Blount offered Harley the job as his personal field trial handler. He had never ridden at a field trial, much less owned a trial dog. The terms of the offer made it one Harley could not refuse. The Partisan’s first all-age year with Harley as his handler produced wins that qualified him for the National Championship. He had run at Ames three times now, finishing the three hours in each and he was again eligible.
* * * * *
When he rode Chester into the empty barnyard that served as headquarters for his North Dakota training, Harley asked his son Fred, a high-school rising senior who had come up with him from Georgia, to drive him to the emergency room in Minot, a hundred miles from Columbus, nearest town to his training grounds. There tests revealed the mini stroke Harley had suffered. Two days later Bill Blount’s Gulfstream flew Harley home and he entered Emory University Hospital for tests which confirmed the Minot hospital’s diagnosis. (Harley had asked three other Georgia dog men training in North Dakota to bring with them his string of dogs, all owned by the Blounts or friends of theirs, and his horses.)
The two trials at Columbus finished running a week later and the dog men drove south with their own and Harley’s stock. (A son of The Partisan owned by the Blounts won one of the derby stakes at Columbus, handled by one of the dog men who would bring south Harley’s stock).
The Emory doctors conferred. They could not rule out further strokes and counseled Harley against further campaigning trial dogs. But Harley was determined to handle the Patriot in the National Championship in February. Until then he would stay at Mossy Swamp, still with his father as its manager, keeping The Partisan in shape and seeing the Emory doctors monthly.
The month before the National was to start, Harley began the routine to ready The Partisan for the National’s grueling three-hour heats. The Partisan knew immediately what Harley was doing and settled into the routine. When the Saturday for the National drawing arrived Bill Blount flew Harley and The Partisan to Memphis. Harley’s son Fred trailered Chester and four other dog horses over from Mossy Swamp. He would scout The Partisan at Ames.
At the Saturday night drawing, The Partisan drew the last brace. There were twenty eight entries so without weather delays The Partisan would go down in the afternoon of Monday of the second week. Bill Blount had rented a farm thirty miles south in north Mississippi with a comfortable five bedroom farmhouse and lands much like the Ames Plantation for them to stay on for the duration. The Partisan would not need a kennel, he would sleep in Bill and Mary’s bedroom.
For the six days of running the first week, The Partisan’s human team (Harley, Fred, Bill and Mary and their twelve year old son Will) rode the afternoon brace each day. Most ended short of the three hours as handler after handler elected to pick up early. Finally on Saturday birds were moving and each of the four dogs down ran a credible race and scored 7, 8 ,9 and 10 finds respectively. Each had gallery riders betting on it to be named the National Champion. Monday morning’s entries were picked up half way through their three allotted hours, clearly not equaling Saturday’s entries. At One P.M. Monday The Parisian and his bracemate, a second year setter named Whistler which had qualified at the last minute, came to the line. The Partisan had long since become trial wise and knew what was expected of him.
From the senior judge’s “Let ‘em go”, The Partisan hunted forward, taking the edges Chester’s direction indicated he should, always approaching likely bird cover on the down-wind side. At an hour and a half he had scored four clean finds without relocation or bobble, birds accurately located on each, his style faultless. Then for thirty minutes he hunted diligently but without results. Harley feared birds had ceased to move, or “shut off” as dog men say.
With an hour to go it was do or die time for The Partisan. Harley called in the Partisan and watered him, Fred helping. “He’s going to need to get in the woods edges now, that’s where these damned libbies have walked to,” Harley whispered. Fred nodded understanding and as scout would drag the appropriate edge, riding behind the judges and keeping his eyes peeled for The Partisan deep in cover surrounding the course. Whistler had been picked up at an hour forty minutes having scored twice on birds.
In the next fifty minutes The Partisan scored three finds, on each point called by Fred and his dog buried deep in edge cover, not visible to Harley or the judges. All were handled faultlessly by the dog. With ten minutes to go, Harley sent his dog forward into woods. It was a gamble. He knew from riding earlier braces that there were birds living where he had sent the Partisan. Now time would be called by the judges and he and Fred would have the grace period to show The Partisan to the judges.
Time was called and Harley rode to the senior judge and asked, “How much time we got to show him.” The judge looked at his stop watch and said, “Fifteen minutes.” He had expected to hear twenty five or thirty, but in the National the judges made their own rules on the grace period. Both Harley and Fred rode into the woods out of sight and sound of the judges to confer. “Trade mounts with me son, Chester is more likely to find our dog than us see him.” Fred had expected this. In twelve minutes, Harley heard Fred yell “Point” and rode Fred’s mount back to where the judges waited, on the way relaying in Fred’s call of point.
The Partisan had his eighth find and handled it like the others. Would it be enough? (Chester had seen The Partisan on point and stopped instantly).
The judges took forty minutes longer than usual to appear on the Manor House porch. The secretary made the usual thanks and announcements and finally removed the judges note from his pocket. “This year’s National Champion is The Partisan.”
Congratulations and hardy handshakes were offered by many, and Fred brought The Partisan from the truck for the pictures. Those taken, the crowd dispersed leaving only The Partisan and his team and Bill and Mary Blount’s twelve year old son Will standing at the foot of the porch steps. Harley was wondering, “What for me now,” when Bill Blount said,
“Harley, Fred, I have bought Mossy Swamp Plantation and we are going to live there. Harley, you have the manager job if you want it. We are today retiring The Partisan but we will be hunting him and campaigning and hunting his offspring. Fred, your tuition at community college will be paid by Mossy Swamp and you have summer jobs there or in North Dakota if you want them.” (Fred was scheduled to start community college the coming fall).
“We want Will to grow up at Mossy Swamp, away from video games and constant cell phones and an urban environment like that prevailing in California. Mary is home schooling him and we want him to grow up with the values the employees of Mossy Swamp, all the employees, embrace.”
* * * * *
Author’s note: This story is fiction, but field trialers will recognize it is inspired by the true life story of National Champion In the Shadow, Owned by Carl and Dianne Bowman and handled by Robin Gates.