Category: Short Stories

A Poacher Forgiven

December 12, 2023 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Albert Cole felt jubilant this opening day of quail hunting season in Thomas County. He had recently concluded successful negotiations to purchase a tract of 300 acres adjoining his Cedar Creek Plantation, rounding out the acreage of his quail shooting estate at 5,000 acres, its original size when assembled for $6 an acre by his great grandfather, a Robber Baron of the Gilded Age, from desperate turpentiners and cotton farmers in two stages, the first beginning in 1893 with a financial panic that led to a Depression lasting until 1897, the second with a Boll Weevil attack on cotton in 1915.  Read more

First Time at Grand Junction

November 23, 2023 | National Championship, Short Stories | Comments
Billy Berg was going to Grand Junction, the Ames Plantation, for the National Bird Dog Championship! He could not believe it. He had been running dogs on the all-age circuit only three years. Before that he had apprenticed under his father, John, who ran shooting dogs for the public on the horseback shooting dog circuit out of New Jersey. Billy had endured lean times but had some success. His owners were mostly one-dog sponsors who had been patrons of his father and placed a dog with him out of affection for his father. But now he had “made his bones,” qualified a dog for the National. This required that the dog win two firsts in open all-age stakes of an hour. Not easy to do, for hour stakes attracted large entries from all-age handlers pursuing the same goals as him, most with deeper strings. Read more

The Hole

November 1, 2023 | Short Stories | Comments
Bud Cole and Andy Grimes were rivals, to put it mildly. Each was a pointing dog trainer-handler for the public in the shooting dog category. They were based in Southside Virginia, a land where tobacco and pine trees for pulpwood and saw timber dominated the rural landscape. The year was 1963. Read more

Scouts

August 15, 2023 | Short Stories | Comments
The year is 1947. The War is finally over, in Europe and Japan. Veterans of the War, leaving home for it as boys, have returned as men, matured by a baptism of fire, some wounded physically, more wounded emotionally, but sharing joy it is over along with its scars.  They are at Broomhill, Manitoba, having trained bird dogs nearby since mid-July. It is the first week in September, time for the Canadian prairie trials, resuming after the War. Mose Blevins had been a scout all his adult life, and now he is fifty-five, not old, but his arthritis is taking its toll. His son Robert is home from the War in Europe. He is twenty-six, hoping to succeed his father as a dog man on Twin Oaks Plantation in Southwest Georgia.  Read more

Before and After DNA

July 24, 2023 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Before DNA proof-of-parentage became possible, practical things were different in many ways, Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD contemplated in their end-of-day musings over drams of The Macallan in Ben’s library-conference room. Nowadays, proof of “who’s your pappy?” was answerable conclusively by a Q-tip swab of saliva submitted to a lab test for humans or beasts, thanks to DNA science.  This had revolutionized pointing dog breeding practices starting in summer Read more

One Too Many

July 18, 2023 | Short Stories | Comments
Billy Eanes was desperate for money. To pay gambling debts. Without the money he would be dead—and soon. Billy was now working as a freelance field trial scout. For years he had scouted for Moose Morris, the top all-age handler on the circuit, but Moose died, heart attack. Since then Billy had freelanced.  Read more

A Deeper Loyalty

July 10, 2023 | Short Stories | Comments
The year was 1947. Jess Combs and Frank Eanes were veterans of the War in Europe, home now to Alabama and Georgia where before the War they had apprenticed under their fathers to become pointing dog field trial trainer-handlers.  Read more

The Auction

May 30, 2023 | Short Stories | Comments
The legendary pointing dog field trial scout Abe Moses dropped dead from the saddle of his horse Feather while riding in the gallery of the Manitoba Championship, having just scouted his employer’s last entry. It was during the last brace, for a bye dog that was immediately picked up by its handler to end the stake. A thirty minute all-age, then a thirty minute derby, were to follow. It was three pm and club officials decided to postpone further running until next morning. Read more

1938

May 11, 2023 | National Championship, Short Stories | Comments
It was a desperate year by every measure. The Great Depression had refused to end; war threatened again in Europe as Germany, now under Hitler’s thumb, smoldered with resentment under the punishing terms of the Treaty of Versailles; and most Americans lived in poverty, those rural who had no debt the best off because they could at least grow and put up their own food for winter and darn their threadbare garments and socks.  Read more