Short Stories

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

Unfortunate Neighbors

December 1, 2017 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach knew there would be trouble when he learned Robert Hart was buying Twisted Pine Plantation. The trouble would come because of who owned adjoining Gnarled Oak Plantation. The storied properties shared a north-south boundary for three miles. Twisted Pine lay to the west, Gnarled Oak to the east. Gnarled Oak was owned by Frank Knox. Knox and Hart had been partners in a private equity firm in Boston Read more

Their Favorite Handler

November 28, 2017 | Short Stories | Comments

Ben and Sam had a favorite among the several for-the-public pointing dog trainer-handlers who called home the area around Albany (locally “All-Benny”). The reason had nothing to do with his prowess as a trainer or deftness at handling. Rather it had to do with his very dark past and how he had redeemed it. Farley Vail had what Sam Nixon MD called an addictive personality. In his youth he had Read more

The Fix

November 20, 2017 | Short Stories | Comments

Ames Plantation Manor House (©Ames Plantation) He farmed, but the center of his life was judging. Judging bird dog field trials. He had judged for years. Judged all over the U. S. and in three Canadian provinces. He got more invitations than he could accept. And for the last ten years he had judged the National. Those two weeks, sometimes longer, were the highlight of his year. He was now Read more

A Desperate Handler

October 1, 2017 | Short Stories | Comments

The look of despair on the face of Vick Fell told Ben Reach the young handler had real troubles. Joanne had put Vick in the library-conference room with a cup of coffee to wait for Ben who was tied up in a judge-ordered settlement conference at the courthouse when Vick arrived for his appointment. She too had recognized the anxiety in Vick and wanted to spare him having to be seen by others who might stop by the office unannounced, as all sorts of friends of the curmudgeon were likely to do now that bream fishing time was arriving. Ben shook Vick’s big leathery hand, “Sorry to make you wait, son. How can I help you?” Read more