Short Stories

The Plan

September 3, 2025 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD had long shared Ed Hale as a client-patient. They liked and admired him, but saw him as a victim of the ill effects of extreme wealth, especially in circumstances like Ed’s where there were three species of offspring—his, hers and theirs. Read more

Harley and Fred

August 11, 2025 | Short Stories | Comments

Harley had been a for-the-public trainer-handler thirty years. He’d had some good years, more not so good, when lack of talent or injury or illness of dogs in his string took their toll, or owners he’d counted on lost interest, or went broke, or died. Nothing surprised him anymore. But he still got a thrill when a puppy or derby in his kennel showed promise. That had kept him in the game. His income was meager, but he was frugal, so got by, if barely. Read more

Intent to Harm

June 12, 2025 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach never dreamed such a sinister thing could happen at a bird dog field trial. He was riding as the reporter, last-minute substitute for a no-show at the Deep South Open All-Age Championship. It was March, and the handlers entered were here in Southwest Georgia seeking end-of-season Purina Points toward All-Age Dog-of-the-Year and a slice of the $35 thousand purse to be divided 20-10-5 among Champion, Runner-Up Champion and Top Qualifier (the event was run with 40-minute qualifying heats and one-hour finals among as many call-backs as the judges felt worthy, usually about twelve, or two days of finals-running worth. Forty dogs were entered. Read more

Ben & Sam

June 7, 2025 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben and Sam were creatures of habit. Long habit. Octogenarians now, they had been friends since childhood, volunteer professional colleagues in helping Sam’s patients and Ben’s clients the many decades they had practiced law and medicine in Albany serving rich and poor in the Quail Belt, a 50-mile stretch of fertile, gently rolling land between Albany and Tallahassee containing a hundred plus estates known for over a hundred years as Yankee Quail Plantations, rich-snowbird refuges from the winter temperatures, snow and ice of northern wealth pockets. Read more

Getting There

April 23, 2025 | Short Stories | Comments

Billy Cord was traveling north to train with scarce the money for gas, much less inevitable emergencies. His tires were thin, his muffler loud from rust leaks, his two-ton stock bed truck’s engine burning oil, all sure signs breakdowns threatened. Still, with temperatures in the 90s at home in Georgia, he had no choice, or so he told himself. Read more

A Gift

April 14, 2025 | Short Stories | Comments

Buddy Cain had achieved a long-held ambition, to his utter surprise. He had qualified Maryland Molly for the National Bird Dog Championship, to be held on the Ames Plantation beginning the second Monday in February, two months away. Molly was a four-year-old pointer female owned by Stan Shelton, a home builder from Baltimore. Like most in his line of business, Stan’s fortunes were boom and bust, dependent largely on interest rates and construction loan availability, over which he had no control. Read more

Gone Too Long

March 31, 2025 | National Championship, Short Stories | Comments

The scene was the National Bird Dog Championship, in February 2025. The trial dated from 1896. It was known as the World Series of Field Trials. A three-hour stake, the last of these, all-age handler reputations were judged on whether a handler had ever won it. A few had, most had not. It took a special dog to win, one with great endurance, dead broke and responsive to handler’s calls, his horse’s direction, with good eyesight, good hearing in both ears, good style. A dog that understood what its handler wanted of it, would consistently pattern forward, find birds, and handle them impeccably. Read more

Happiness Plantation

March 12, 2025 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Its name was apt when Bud Branch bought it after selling the business he founded and by brains and hard work grew to great value, then sold for cash. From age sixty to eighty Bud enjoyed it immensely, as did his sons Al and Fred, both hard chargers like their dad but in law (Al, counsel for plaintiffs badly injured) and venture capital (Fred, private equity in Silicon Valley). To deepen the plot, Al and Fred had different mothers, Al’s Wife One, Fred’s Wife Two, the Trophy Wife. Result, predictably, Al and Fred hated one another. Read more

Pedigree Fraud Corrected

February 10, 2025 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Bill Blain bought Unicorn Plantation with the proceeds of the sale of his own Unicorn, product of an element of Artificial Intelligence he stumbled upon while designing an algorithm. He had fallen in love with the Red Hills of Georgia when an investment banker took him there to shoot quail and to pitch the sale of his start-up. He fell in love with bird dog field trials when at dawn one day of the quail hunt he rode with a plantation hand to watch him work a derby he was preparing to run in the Continental Derby Championship. Read more

The Derby

February 3, 2025 | National Championship, Short Stories | Comments

Last Hope took the right edge after leaving the breakaway. His bracemate, a pointer named Hollywood Hal, took the left edge. Both dogs hunted them forward out of sight. In the second field they were found pointing, Hal in front, Hope backing. Bob and Bill knew Hal had stolen the point, for Hope was the faster dog. All was in order at the flush. Both dogs were watered from their scouts’ detergent bottles and released. Read more