Category: Short Stories

Diss and Ace

August 2, 2022 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
“What does diss mean?” Ben asked Joanne. “Disrespect, or a put down. Kids say it a lot.” “That clears things up,” Ben said. He had just got off the phone with Fred Carter, a bird dog trainer-handler worried about getting sued. He’d said an owner had dissed his scout, and that was maybe the cause of the incident that could get him sued by the owner. Later that day, Ben drove to Fred’s little farm to get more facts. He was greeted by ten kennel runs of barking bird dogs. Fred and his scout, Benny Blevins, were cleaning runs and preparing the evening’s feed for the dogs. Read more

Three Men and a Dog

July 11, 2022 | Short Stories | Comments
Billy Bowles arrived at the Ames Plantation Saturday at noon and took his lone entry to the Trapp Memorial Kennels where he had reserved a run and two stalls nearby for his mounts. He heeled the pointer Rip from his truck to the run after hanging his own water bucket inside the door and putting fresh hay in the plastic barrel. (Rip as always had traveled from Georgia in the truck’s front seat beside Billy). Read more

Blowout

July 8, 2022 | Short Stories | Comments
He heard the blast and felt the lurch simultaneously, and knew in an instant what had happened. Trailer tire blown, no spare. He fought the wheel, not daring to brake, then grappled for control, avoid a jackknife, the ditch…he was stopped, ten feet off the left edge of the interstate pavement. He got out, confirmed the four horses were all standing. Using a flashlight, confirmed none of the four were bleeding. Read more

Burn or Bury (A deadly serious story)

June 15, 2022 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Ike Slapp died after surviving two wives and leaving two daughters, one by each wife. Ben was fishing in Montana with Sam when Ike bit the dust, literally and figuratively. Ike’s older daughter took the bull by the horns and arranged Ike’s funeral and burial without consulting Ben or her sister. When Ben got home he found Ike snug in his coffin, buried in a local cemetery with (literally) his first wife. Read more

Long Leaf or Concrete

April 27, 2022 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
It was a dread but familiar problem. How to solve it and satisfy long-waiting heirs and at the same time save a landmark of unique natural beauty was the challenge. Fred Fulton had owned Leaning Pine Plantation fifty years, bought it with the proceeds of his early and first big business deal. He had stewarded it lovingly since, even as urban development approached it relentlessly. Read more

Last Hunt

April 18, 2022 | Short Stories | Comments
John Cole had been hunt master on Old Pine Plantation thirty years. Before that he had worked on other plantations in the quail belt, that land between Albany and Tallahassee where quail still thrived, thanks to Yankee old money, fire, and God’s providence. Read more

Whatsleft Plantation

March 22, 2022 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Whatsleft Plantation enjoyed a special place in the hearts of Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD. It lay on the edge of Thomasville. It had been in the family of its owner Frank Atkinson since 1880 when his great-grandfather discovered it while escaping Cleveland’s ice and snow and lodging at a fashionable Thomasville resort hotel, that day’s equivalent of The Breakers in Palm Beach. Read more

The Hand Off

March 21, 2022 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments
Fred Fox and Benny Carr had been partners thirty years. They had traveled the circuit each year, starting in Canada (later South Dakota), where they trained, in late August, then drifted south week by week. In December they’d begun the winter piney-woods season at the Georgia Open All-Age and Derby Championships, then worked the Florida, the Continental Derby and All-Age... Read more

Hi-Tech Climax

March 8, 2022 | Field Trials, Short Stories | Comments
It was the end of the season. It promised to be a battle royal between two all-age dog-handler-scout teams. The dogs were Gen-X and Millennial, full-brother pointers, sired in West Kentucky, the latter from a year-earlier litter. The handlers were Mike Eanes and Ike Reams, former team mates in a “helpin’ each other” partnership that went sour. The scouts were Archie Bell and Will Smith, twenty-something former Georgia high-school baseball rivals who had pitched opposite one another in consecutive-year state championship finals games, each winning and losing one. There was no love lost between opposing team members. But that was nothing compared to the rivalry between the dogs’ owners. Read more