Short Stories

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

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

The Finalist ~ conclusion

January 1, 2018 | Short Stories | Comments

The runoff brace began after lunch. Three hundred were riding. Soon it was apparent conditions were ideal, the dogs closely matched, and the derbies were in a duel. First Bud, then Melissa, scored on the limb. At thirty minutes down each had scored three finds, not a bobble. Then a twenty minute dry spell, followed by two rapid finds by each dog. The judges had set no time limit for Read more

The Finalist

December 31, 2017 | Short Stories | Comments

John Pace got the word on his return home to Georgia from North Dakota where he had spent July and August training pointers. Six to nine months to live. The end would likely come quickly, until it did he would likely be able to work. He took the news philosophically, for there was no other way to take it. He had no children, his wife had died two years ago. Read more

Incompatible (A Story for Christmas)

December 24, 2017 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach was accustomed to inquiries about employment from plantation dog men in the spring. In fact the firings and quittings among them in that season was known as the Spring Shuffle. But when Red Roberts called Joanne for an appointment the week before Christmas and reported he was out of a job, Ben could hardly believe it. First, because this was prime quail hunting season. Plantation owners had guests Read more

Apprentice Scout

December 19, 2017 | Short Stories | Comments

The year was 1961. Mose Green had scouted for Ike Weeks thirty years. Mose was black. Ike was white. They lived mid-March through June in Southwest Georgia, but spent most of nine months of the year away, July through mid-September on Canadian prairie, the rest of the year on the road traveling to trial venues, Midwest, Southwest, finally Deep South for the cold months. They traveled in a two-ton truck, Read more

Four Visitors

December 9, 2017 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

It was two weeks before Christmas. Ben and Sam had mixed emotions, glad to be seeing old friends back in Albany to visit family over the Holidays, sad to realize the ranks of friends were shrinking. A few of their many acquaintances knew the sure way to find them together this time of year was to drop by Ben’s office at 4:30 or so. With days short they met early Read more