Short Stories

The Handoff ~ Part I

April 30, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Arleigh Gant had campaigned two decades, but this would be his last season. He’d gotten the news from his doctor in June. He’d decided to go to North Dakota in July as usual, but with only one adult dog. That dog would be Rampaging, a first-year, and last season’s Derby of the Year. Arleigh still owned him. He’d told his four dog owners of his decision to quit the circuit but not the reason. He did not want anyone to know of his illness. He’d sent the owners’ dogs to other handlers of their choice. He would take also three coming derbies of his own, siblings of Rampaging from his bitch Hannah, sired like Rampaging by Miller’s White Powder, now banned. Read more

Ben and Sam’s Secret Sideline

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

Ben Reach had a secret, a well-guarded secret. He constantly studied character. His law practice afforded the perfect laboratory for this game. Sam Nixon, MD played it with him. While they largely fished in silence, they made exceptions to discuss men and women who fascinated them. Very rich people particularly fascinated them. Not that they admired them — quite the contrary in most cases. Men and women who used wealth to push others around or drive too harsh bargains infuriated them. There were lots of them in Southwest Georgia. Owners of shooting plantations left them by Robber Baron ancestors tended to be demanding skin flints in their dealings with their help, black and white. They revealed this most amusingly when a new plantation owner dared to hire away a prized butler or cook or dog trainer by offering higher wages. Doing so was a sure way to be black balled in plantation society. Read more

The Test

April 20, 2018 | National Championship, Short Stories | Comments

Carl Dean slept little. He was up as usual at five. He and his partner Fred Archer were living for the duration of the National Championship in a former tenant house on a farm ten miles east of the Ames Plantation. This was the trial’s last day, and Fred Archer’s sole entry, Arkansas Andy, would go down in the afternoon brace. Carl would scout. His inability to sleep last night Read more

Turkey Season Dilemma (with Epilogue)

April 15, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

As soon as the spring burn was done the turkey hunting would begin on Bent Pine Plantation. Usually Amos King welcomed it, but this year it’s approach brought him dread. He sensed it could bring disaster. Amos occupied unique positions on Bent Pine. Hunting wagon driver, or mule skinner, in quail season, turkey caller in turkey season, boat paddler for spring bream fishing, bar tender at cocktail hour whenever any Read more

A Tale Often Told

April 7, 2018 | Short Stories | Comments

In A Hypothetical, I posted on Facebook about a stolen point and asked readers whether they would confess their thieving dog’s larceny to the judges and pick up, or accept the good luck that their dog’s crime went judicially unseen. That was back in 2016, and recently reposted. Here is a true story on the same theme, involving two of field trialing’s best known characters, John Rex and Robin Gates. Read more

The Lesson

March 28, 2018 | Short Stories | Comments

It was the Masters Quail Championship. Billy White was in his third year as a handler on the circuit, and he had lucked onto a truly great dog, one of the many out of western Kentucky bought as a first year all-age by a very wealthy financier newly fascinating by the obscure sport of field trials. That owner was a throw back to the early years when men like Pierre Read more

A Judging Dilemma

March 20, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

As had become almost habitual, Ben Reach was a last-minute substitute for a reporter who failed to show. The stake was an end-of-season all-age qualifier being run on an iconic wild bird plantation near Albany. One of the announced judges had also flat rocked, and when on arriving at the plantation, Ben learned who the substitute judge was he almost claimed a health emergency to get out of his assignment. Read more

A Wise Scout

March 16, 2018 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach lamented the disappearance of black scouts from pointing dog field trials. They were gone for economic reasons, not because of discrimination. Handlers simply could not afford employee-scouts, electing instead out of necessity to trade scouting duties with fellow handlers. It saved payroll and horse expense, but it had cost much of the heart of the game. Now instead of employee-scouts, handlers scouted for one another. It saved payroll Read more

More About Ben

March 6, 2018 | Short Stories | Comments

In Remembering Ben, I told the story of my favorite pointer gun dog. When Ben was four, we hunted the last day of quail season with Sam Kerr in Appomattox. It was one of those magic days. With a snowstorm coming in from the Southwest, flakes began to fall about two, and quail went on a feeding frenzy. We were in birds almost constantly until dark. A covey was feeding Read more

Remembering Ben

March 5, 2018 | Short Stories | Comments

Like all old bird hunters, I have stored in memory a book of the lives and deaths of the bird dogs which owned my heart over six decades. Most came to me as weanlings, lived with me an average of twelve years, and passed into eternity moistened by my tears. Ben, one of the best, came to me at his age eighteen months, and as one of but a few Read more