Category: Short Stories

A Passing of the Torch ~ Part 1

October 13, 2025 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Sam Nixon MD had endured a troubling week. He felt the need to talk it out with his pal, Ben Reach, at their customary Friday afternoon meeting at Ben’s office to plan the weekend’s fishing. “Ben, I have a problem, or one of my patient’s has: Al Scales has congestive heart failure.” Read more

Denny and Joe and Lucky

September 8, 2025 | Remembrances, Short Stories | Comments
Two more different individuals ever lived than Denny Poole and Joe Prince. Yet they were best friends. Joe was a Virginia bachelor grain farmer (peanuts, soybeans, corn, wheat). He worked at it seven days a week, March through October. November through February, Joe was a quail hunter, six days a week. Sundays he walked puppies and looked for quail hunting territory. One word described Joe: intense. Read more

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