Short Stories

The Surest Way

November 6, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach seemed to spend more time on fights among siblings these days than any other problem. And the leading cause of the disputes was joint ownership of real estate inherited from a parent. “Don’t leave your children property to own together. It’s a sure recipe for an ugly fight,” Ben would say. His father had had a saying forty years earlier, “Surest way to destroy brotherly love is to leave brothers shared ownership of a farm — or anything else.” Read more

Worst Mistake

October 3, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD were settled in Ben’s library-conference room at 4 PM on a Friday with drams of The Macallan 12 in plastic mugs and splits of club soda to dilute it on the table before them. Both were glad the work week was over — it had been a tough one. Sam had to tell a patient her cancer had returned. Ben had to tell a grandfather his favorite grandson had failed out of the grandfather’s Alma Mater. Ben mentioned the bird dog trainers, field trial and hunting plantation types, were just back from summer training on northern prairies. He and Sam were invited to a dove shoot on Mossy Swamp Plantation tomorrow. “What was the worst screw-up you saw field trial judges make in your years of doing that?” Read more

“Helpin’ Each Other”

September 4, 2024 | Booty Blevins, Short Stories | Comments

It was 1957, in the era before “Helpin’ Each Other,” when pro bird dog handlers scouted for one another out of economic necessity. It was in the era when pro handlers traveled in stake-bed trucks instead of dually pickup trucks pulling goose neck trailers, and in the era when scouts were mostly black men employed year around as assistant trainers by the white handler they scouted for. Those scouts were a band of brothers, low paid but loving their work and the dogs they scouted and helped train. Read more

Holes and Rules

August 13, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

“Every dog has got a hole, and his handler has to hide it,” was a truism in the world of bird dog field trials. This led to an experiment at the Deep South Open All-Age Championship, initiated by John Steed, owner of Fat Pine Plantation, venue of the Championship. Steed issued bodycams to each of the six mounted marshals he sponsored to ride throughout the Championship. Before the first breakaway, he met privately with the marshals. Read more

Spring Shuffle Delayed

July 29, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories, Ted Baker | Comments

Oliver Bain sold his AI (artificial intelligence) Unicorn (billion-dollar start-up) to Microsoft instead of taking it public. He was 58, and unknown to any around him, had a secret ambition he would now satisfy. As a boy growing up on a farm in Virginia, he had walked with his father, a dirt farmer, behind home grown pointers and setters after quail. Read more

A Dread Problem and a Solution

July 22, 2024 | Booty Blevins, Short Stories | Comments

Sam Teel and Booty Blevins had been partners ten years, never had a fight. They argued some about how to fix a problem, but each knew that was healthy. They didn’t make much money, but loved what they did for a living, training and handling pointing dogs on the field trial circuit. In their day there was just one circuit, for shooting dogs were yet to be a separate circuit, formally. Sure, there were wide dogs and short dogs, big country and less big, major trials and weekend trials. Read more

The Handoff

July 10, 2024 | Short Stories | Comments

The year was 1955. Buck Reed had returned home to South Georgia from the war in Europe ten years before and embarked on his career as an all-age handler of pointing dogs as successor to his father, Sam, who had then retired from the same trade, turning his string over to Buck. Sam sadly died a year later of a heart attack, victim of the near universal curse of his generation, cigarettes. Read more

Siblings

July 2, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

“Inheritance brings out the worst in people,” Ben Reach often reminded his friend Sam Nixon M.D. when the old friends discussed the inevitable deaths of their shared patrons (Ben’s clients, Sam’s patients). A prime example occurred when Minnie Blanton asked the curmudgeons to meet with her jointly about a change she wanted to make in her will. Minnie was the widow of Buck Blanton, long time manager of Tall Pines Plantation, a showplace quail plantation just south of Thomasville. When Buck retired the plantation’s owner rewarded his long service by giving him a modest house and ten-acre curtilage on the edge of Tall Pines, subject to a buy-back option if Buck or a successor in his family ever wanted to sell it. Buck had left it to Minnie. Read more

Revenge of the Cat Woman

May 28, 2024 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach had seen some strange rifts on the theme of inheritance greed since in 2011 “Portability” had come into the federal estate tax law. Under “Portability, “a dying spouse could leave the surviving spouse his or her unused estate tax exemption, for the survivor to use against future gifts or bequests. Because of “Portability,” some children were now encouraging single parents to marry poor (preferably penniless) candidates in questionable health in hopes of inheriting the benefits of their estate tax exemptions. Read more

Suspicion Unconfirmed

May 6, 2024 | Short Stories | Comments

Fred Barnes was a watcher. Little got by him. For the last two years he had been watching John Payne, a professional pointing dog handler, and his scout, Willie Blevins. Fred judged field trial’s a lot. Why? Because he had horses and a truck-trailer rig to haul them, and if he committed, he showed, and he appeared to be without favorites among handlers or owners, pointers or setters. He was pleasant enough, stayed sober in daylight hours. Accepted only gas money to judge. He watched constantly the dogs under judgment. Did not chat or gather wool while judging. Rode every brace at the same pace. Read more