Category: Ben Reach

A Conspiracy With a Happy Ending

March 4, 2021 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
They had been rivals since 1916, the year of the first Yankee Field Trial, that trial held every Presidents Day by the Georgia-Florida Field Trial Club and called by its members (all quail plantation owners) the Owner’s Trial. They were three adjoining quail plantations, owned by cousins now, once by siblings, children of the same Cleveland Robber Baron, a coal and iron ore man, fabulously wealthy, who owned them all and called it Heavenfield. Read more

The Problem

March 1, 2021 | Ben Reach | Comments
Ben got the call out of the blue. He had never heard of Ronnie Bowles. The young man introduced himself as an aspiring amateur horseback field trailer from Maryland (Maryland, where in Hell can you run a bird dog in Maryland? Ben thought. Read more

The First Year

December 11, 2020 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
“I need your help with a patient,” Sam Nixon MD told his pal Ben Reach while the curmudgeons were waiting for their breakfasts in their customary booth in Millie’s Diner. “What’s his problem?” Ben asked. “On the verge of a nervous breakdown. Bird dog handler, got one that won everything last season, can’t keep him at all this season. He was expecting to continue winning this season, but every time he turns him loose there is a screw up,” Sam said. Read more

The Entry Fees

November 23, 2020 | Ben Reach | Comments
“Why do all the old field trial guys treat you so kindly, Ben?” Sam asked during a sundown session in Ben’s library-conference room on a Friday afternoon. The curmudgeons had just poured themselves drams of The Macallan 12, and Ben had just got off the phone with a friend and some-time client inquiring if Ben knew of any quail plantation jobs needing filling (it was March and the “spring shuffle” time for such hands was in full bloom). Read more

Do Not Do That

October 13, 2020 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
This had come up before, many years ago, so Ben and Sam were not totally surprised. Herb Sheer had come to Doc first, and Doc had suggested he get Ben involved. Herb had long been a patient of Doc and a client of Ben. The problem had originated, not surprisingly, with a new charismatic preacher in town. In the curmudgeons’ long experience such seldom heralded peace for parishioners. Read more

Per Stirpes or Per Capita

September 18, 2020 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
It seemed to Ben that sibling strife dominated his law practice these days. He and Sam Nixon MD were mulling the causes as at 5pm each nursed his three fingers of The Macallan in Ben’s library-conference room. The subject of their mulling was the Tucker family, its members long patients of Sam and clients of Ben. Read more

About Families

August 25, 2020 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Ben and Sam found themselves in old age constantly contending with family strife in their practices of law and medicine. Time after time they watched families disintegrate into discord, indeed mutual hate. They often were on hand when a patriarch or matriarch died, only to witness strife break out among the children with unbelievable ferocity. “Why,” one or the other of the curmudgeons would ask the other after a family Read more

The Blue Hen ~ Conclusion

August 4, 2020 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
One by one the sealed bids were opened by the club’s president and read aloud to the hushed crowd of tuxedoed and gowned revelers. The bids ranged in odd numbers from a low of $30,001 to a high of $50,001, of which there were two. These were, as the two the Curmudgeons had predicted, by Harvey Grant and Fred Lee. Read more