Blog

A Rivalry

February 16, 2018 | National Championship, National Free-For-All Championship, Short Stories | Comments
It’s the 1930s, times are desperate, the Great Depression has the world in its grip, yet for a few at the top nothing has changed. So it is for Harley Keen and Richard Bain, owners of businesses whose products are still in demand at prices producing a profit. Keen’s is tobacco, Bain’s is whiskey, legal again with Prohibition’s repeal. They are sports, and their shared passion is bird dog field Read more

Continuance, Continuance

February 13, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Ben did not take criminal cases to be tried much anymore, but he knew he could not refuse to take this one. Sid Miles was charged with assault. Assault with his fists. His victim and accuser was Frankie Weeks, son of the owner of Burley Oak Plantation, William Weeks. Sid was a Cracker, Frankie and William, Yankee blue bloods. William Weeks was plumb rich, a native of Boston, fourth Weeks Read more

Two Birds With One Hat

February 7, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Monk Baldwin was one of Ben’s favorite people. He was the long-time butler on Mossy Swamp Plantation, and the epitome of a gentleman. Always pleasant, always observant of the needs for help of family and guests and fellow employees at Mossy Swamp, Monk had come to Ben for help more than once when he sensed something needed to be done at Mossy Swamp and that Ben might be able to Read more

Boomerang

February 5, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Pete-Bob Dix called Ben’s law office and got Joanne, whom Ben called PIC (for Person in Charge). He wanted to schedule a meeting with Ben for the children of Albert Chance, whose obituary had appeared today in the Thomasville Times-Enterprise. Albert had owned Murmuring Pines Plantation, having bought it after a “Liquidity Event,” the sale to Amazon of the warehouse company he had developed over a fifty year career. “What Read more

A Lecture For Harley

January 30, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Harley Gunn was among Ben Reach’s favorite clients, but perhaps also his most frustrating. Harley was wealthy beyond Ben’s comprehension, having built a brewery fortune and transformed it into a diversified one managed out of a family office in Boston. In his seventies now, Harley spent his winters and springs on his Leaning Pine Plantation just west of Thomasville where he indulged his passions for fine bird dogs, walking horses, Read more

Avoiding the Second UP

January 26, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
It was the dread of every field trialer — the second UP. In this case the dread meant much more than usual. Floating Mary was running in the last brace of the Lee County Open All-Age. Ben Reach and a fellow from Virginia — I forget his name — were judging. The stake up to now had been mediocre at best. But Mary was laying down a hell of a Read more

Priceless Memories

January 18, 2018 | Field Trial Recollections | Comments
Field trials have brought me priceless friendships. Among the most cherished was with Ed Mack Farrior and his lovely wife Floyd. They arose from an invitation to report and later judge the National Amateur Free-For-All Championship at Union Springs. Read more

The End of the Trial

January 5, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
It was a situation Ben had encountered often in his long career as a field trial judge, but its ending would be truly memorable. Time had expired with both dogs out of sight at the front. Handlers and scouts rode in search, hoping to find their dog pointed. Success could mean victory, for the brace, the last of the Championship, had also been the best. Each dog had scored two Read more