Ben Reach

A Reinstatement

October 17, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

“Gilbert Blevins called and asked if he might come see you,” Joanne said to Ben Reach on his return to the office from lunch at Millie’s Diner. “When will he be here?” Ben asked. “At three, today is his day off.” “Good.” Read more

What Do I Do With Gnarly Pine?

October 10, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Sequel To Per Stirpes or Per Capita Bob Blain had to decide what to do on his death with all his wealth except Gnarly Pine Plantation, the five thousand acre quail plantation outside Thomasville his family had owned and stewarded since 1895. He could leave it to whomever he chose without estate tax concerns because it was held in a trust for him that was not transfer taxable when he died. His family was gone except for his six grandchildren, ages fourteen to thirty. None of them could afford to own it alone, but as partners—all or some of them—might be able to swing it. Big problem for Bob, he did not know them well enough to judge whether some or all would be suitable stewards for this special place. Read more

Per Stirpes or Per Capita

October 2, 2018 | Ben Reach | Comments

Ben Reach got the call on the morning of November 1. The caller was Bob Blain, formerly of Boston, now a resident of Thomasville where his family had owned a quail plantation since 1895. Until now Bob had resided on the plantation only Thanksgiving to March 1 each year, plus a week for Spring gobbler season and some bream fishing and some weekends in dove season. Bob was Ben’s age. “Ben, I want to review my estate plan with you now that I am a Georgia resident, “ Bob said after opening pleasantries. They agreed on a meeting time a week later. Read more

The Set Up

September 23, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben got the call on his cell phone on Saturday morning, the first week in March, as he and Sam fly cast for bream from a Jon boat on a pond at Mossy Swamp Plantation. “Mr. Sam, we been set up.” The caller was Andy Ames, a young pointing dog handler just turned pro. Ben could detect the fear and anguish in his voice. “Who is ‘we’ Andy?” Ben said from instinct. “Me and Mr. Harold,” Andy replied. Read more

The Secret Fund (Sequel to The Last Summer)

August 10, 2018 | Ben Reach | Comments

Readers will recall that in The Last Summer a lad named Jimmy got his bearings thanks to a summer of hard outdoor work with a bird dog trainer on a ranch in Montana. A year later Jimmy’s grandfather, who had financed that summer, called Ben Reach’s office and asked for an appointment. “Can you make it at about four on a Friday, and ask Dr. Sam to join us?” “Of course,” Joanne said with a smile. She suspected that the purpose of the grandfather’s appointment would be a reward to the curmudgeons for what the Montana summer had done for Jimmy in helping him become a man instead of an adolescent. Read more

The Last Summer

July 19, 2018 | Ben Reach | Comments

Bill Culp was sad. He had just retired, at age sixty eight, from his job as dog trainer on Mossy Swamp Plantation. For the first time in forty years, he would not be going North July 6 to train bird dogs on the prairie. In the earliest years he had gone as a helper to an all-age for-the-public pro handler, then as a pro handler himself, and the last twenty years as the trainer on this South Georgia shooting plantation. He told himself he had nothing to be sad about. He knew he was fortunate, was financially secure, unlike many who had “followed the dogs” and ended up at his age with nothing but arthritis from horse falls or worse. But the thought of not spending July, August and three weeks of September, his favorite part, on those limitless lands, not seeing the glorious sunrises and sunsets, not feeling the ceaseless winds on his face when they finally changed from blow torch to cool, then crisp at dawn, and again at the long day’s end, depressed him. Read more

A Reversal of Fortune

June 29, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

When Ben Reach heard Bill Bain had gone to work as dog trainer on Twisted Pine Plantation, he cringed. Bill had for many years been a for-the-public-over-the-road trainer-handler of all-age pointing dogs. He’d given it up to take the plantation job for the usual reason — economics. He’d found it impossible to make a living any longer, for his expenses had overwhelmed his revenue. He’d had bad luck of several sorts — best customer quit the game, two best dogs sustained disabling injuries, two others were taken from him by their owners who sensed his operation was collapsing. That had been the last straw for Bill. He’d sold his horses at the last trial he attended, returned the rest of his string of dogs to their owners, dropped off his horse trailer at the dealership that held the lien, done the same with his dually. That left him with only a ten-year-old midsize Dodge pickup and two sets of tack, which he took with him to Twisted Pine. Read more

What To Do

June 1, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Billy Cole was in his second season as a for-the-public over-the-road pointing dog handler on the all-age circuit. Based at Leesburg, Georgia, he trained in summers in North Dakota, then after competing in prairie trials drifted South week by week, arriving at home in time for the piney woods country’s opener, the Lee County Trial. He was holding his own, if barely, with two of the eight dogs in his string consistent threats whenever put down, a statistic common to those plying his trade. Read more

A Wise Dog Man

May 21, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD again found themselves at a funeral, this time a graveside service on Bentover Pine Plantation outside Thomasville. The ashes being buried were those of Bentover’s owner Hiram Prichard of Cleveland, an old-money heir to a coal baron fortune. The curmudgeons found themselves standing by Ralph Eanes, a bird dog trainer their age from Camilla. In his day Ralph had campaigned some good ones, but he’d figured out the economics of the road didn’t work for him, and thereafter stayed on the farm his father had left him, raised a few pups and broke them for plantation wagon dogs or personal gun dogs for shoe-leather bird hunters, a shrinking constituency. Read more

The Handoff ~ Part IV (Conclusion)

May 3, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

With the deal done, the four men went back to Arleigh’s camp for a celebratory supper of steaks on the grill. On the short drive, Mr. Brown made several phone calls. Whiskey flowed, field trial stories were told by Arleigh and Brown’s dog man, some true, some maybe not. The steaks, supplied by Mr. Brown and grilled by his dog man, an expert, were the best Bob had ever eaten and though food didn’t taste good to Arleigh since the onset of his illness he enjoyed the first few bites. Then Mr. Brown made an announcement. Read more