Short Stories

A Derby

January 6, 2024 | Short Stories | Comments

Billy Hanes had been a framing carpenter until rising interest rates choked the house building business around his native west Kentucky and he withdrew his savings, bought a four-year-old dually and a well used gooseneck livestock trailer he adapted to haul horses and dogs and lit out for North Dakota in June, hoping to find a place to train. He lucked on to that in a week of driving around and asking wherever he saw a roadside mailbox in likely looking territory. He had with him four green horses he’d picked up at a sale barn and a dozen dogs, half pups, half coming derbies, all pointers. Read more

The Farrier

December 30, 2023 | Short Stories | Comments

He knew many, was known by few, known deeply by none. None knew his home place, for he had none, save his truck, adapted by him for his craft as an itinerant shoer of horses. Where he was depended on the calendar: spring and summer on the small-town rodeo circuit in the west, early fall through March on the pointing dog field trial circuits (all-age and shooting dog). Read more

A Christmas Fix

December 24, 2023 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben and Sam were brainstorming on how to help their old friends, the handler Jim Heath and his helper Booty Blevins, with their problem, brought on by old age. Jim was seventy, Booty seventy-two. The Curmudgeons had considerable experience, much of it first-hand, with problems brought on by old age. But they had been fortunate to avoid Jim and Booty’s problem, LOF (lack of funds). Jim and Booty still had the will to work, indeed loved to work. Problem was, age had robbed them of an asset essential to their craft, eyesight. Jim had macular degeneration, Booty glaucoma. What could they do with their skill sets to make a buck, that was the question the Curmudgeons were pondering as they slowly sipped end-of-day-end-of-week drams of The Macallan 12 in Ben’s library-conference room. Read more

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

If We See a Scout

October 2, 2023 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

The junior judge announced at the first breakaway, “If we see a scout riding in front, his dog will be disqualified.” Ben Reach, the senior judge, thought, “Oh, Hell.” 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