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The Hand Off

March 21, 2022 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Fred Fox and Benny Carr had been partners thirty years. They had traveled the circuit each year, starting in Canada (later South Dakota), where they trained, in late August, then drifted south week by week. In December they’d begun the winter piney-woods season at the Georgia Open All-Age and Derby Championships, then worked the Florida, the Continental Derby and All-Age... Read more

Hi-Tech Climax

March 8, 2022 | Field Trials, Short Stories | Comments
It was the end of the season. It promised to be a battle royal between two all-age dog-handler-scout teams. The dogs were Gen-X and Millennial, full-brother pointers, sired in West Kentucky, the latter from a year-earlier litter. The handlers were Mike Eanes and Ike Reams, former team mates in a “helpin’ each other” partnership that went sour. The scouts were Archie Bell and Will Smith, twenty-something former Georgia high-school baseball rivals who had pitched opposite one another in consecutive-year state championship finals games, each winning and losing one. There was no love lost between opposing team members. But that was nothing compared to the rivalry between the dogs’ owners. Read more

End of the Season

March 4, 2022 | Field Trials, Poetry | Comments
Another season ending The quail pairing off Dogs and horses road weary Handlers and scouts wore out They’ve been on the road Since August Starting up north Hauling dogs and horses To new grounds week by week Read more

Two Heros

March 1, 2022 | Henry Caruso Jr., Remembrances | Comments
They are two heroes, both Pennsylvanians, both Vietnam combat veterans. Both are pointing dog professionals. One is a Marine, one is Army. They both saw much combat, and that has had its inevitable consequences, physical and mental. Read more

February Oaks

February 27, 2022 | Poetry | Comments
In February oaks I seek When I am feeling old and weak In groves they lift bare limbs to pray To celebrate a cold clear day Alone they spread strong branches wide In symmetry on every side Winds shake last acorns to the ground By birds and mammals to be found Turkey grouse and bobwhite quail Deer squirrel and mouse on them prevail I will endure oaks say to me Read more

The End

February 23, 2022 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
It was at the Quail Championship Invitational, at the West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area, that lonely expanse of gently rolling neglected agricultural land surrounding a scary nuclear energy gaseous diffusion refinery and a coal-powered TVA electric energy generating plant on the bank of the Tennessee River, on the outskirts of Paducah, Kentucky. Read more