Category: Short Stories

The Confession (fiction)

June 23, 2021 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
It had happened in 1965. Forty-Five were entered, forty-one pointers and four setters. After eight had run the first two days, the National Bird Dog Championship was called off for too few birds. This despite the fact Highway Man for Bill Rayl had scored three finds and hunted to the Amesian Standard. The judges’ decision had many followers of the sport furious. Read more

The Master Thief

June 16, 2021 | Short Stories | Comments
Fred Freeze was a genius at training pointing dogs, of a certain sort. Very smart ones, the ones who understood what field trials were all about. Not necessarily the most athletic or naturally talented, but those that could be taught to leverage the talents of a bracemate. And none had been so well suited to Fred Freeze’s methods as Candice, a pointer female who learned tricks from Fred like a circus performer. Read more

Rivals

June 11, 2021 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
They had been fierce rivals twenty years. Too fierce some said. The rivalry came to a head in the National Amateur Quail Championship run that year on the King Ranch. They had been top amateur handlers for years now, competing all over the country in regional championships with all-age dogs they bred and trained themselves. Like others in the top echelon, the semi-pros Ben Reach called them, they were serious as a heart attack about winning, so much so that many competitors dreaded being braced with them. They were generally good sportsmen, unless your dog was a threat to win; then sportsmanship went out the window, and you best be on the lookout, or so rumor had it. Read more

The Genius

May 5, 2021 | Short Stories | Comments
He was a genius, no doubt about it. He had the riches to prove it. His genius was not in invention, but in seeing before others how inventions could be applied. Time after time this had led him to buy into successful technology companies before they became publicly owned, either through initial public offerings or recently via the SPAC route. Read more

The Qualification of Reb

March 29, 2021 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
For Billy Kell, it seemed the worst possible day of his life. It did not turn out that way. This is the story. It was 2004. Billy was an up-and-coming bird dog pro, age twenty-eight, a trainer-handler of pointing dogs for field trial competition. He’d grown up the son of a quail plantation manager near Thomasville, Georgia, who earlier had been the plantation’s dog trainer and hunt manager. Read more

The Transition ~ Part Two

March 13, 2021 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Allen Ames left Ben’s office at 5, Ben having told him he’d ponder how best to approach a deal with Ed Tate to take over his string. Doc arrived for the Curmudgeons’ ritual end-of-week shared libation. Ben explained Allen’s dream as they sipped their first drams of The Macallan. “What do you suppose Ed Tate has got to live on in retirement?” Sam asked. Read more

The Transition ~ Part One

March 8, 2021 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
“Ed Tate is going to have to retire,” Sam Nixon M. D. told Ben Reach at breakfast at Millie’s Diner. “Why?” Ben asked. “Heart disease, plus emphysema. Lifelong smoker,” Sam said. “How old is Ed?” Ben asked. “Sixty-seven,” Sam said. Read more

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