It’s after lunch and this man sitting behind his desk props his feet up and sighs as he looks out the window.  It was excruciatingly hot and the boss had stolen his fan.  There came a knock on his office door, well, more like a pounding that threatened to rip the door off its hinges.  

Wincing, he waited for a pause before saying, “come in.”

“Tip!”  A grizzly old man came storming into the room.  His hair was an iron gray and his eyes a wild blue.  “Tip, the Dargins dogs have been at my fowl again!  They killed five of my best!  Five!  You know I have you make a living off those stupid birds and I can’t have those retched dogs at them!”

(Guessed yet?)

“Now look hear Tihllard,” Tip said, trying to calm the big man down.  Last time he really did brake the door, and the expenses came from Tip’s own pocket.  “The Dargins moved to the next town over.  There is no way that it was their dogs.  Did you actually see them?”

“Well…uh…not r-really, no.  But the fact is, is that my blasted birds are dead!”  He pounded the desk, and Tip just barley kept from whimpering as a dent appeared in the wood.

“Fine, I’ll come have a look.”

Yup.  Poor Tip works the ever-dreaded complaint desk/office/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.  He has always had this uncanny knack of getting people to agree and stop arguing.  So instead of being in the Primary Agent Corps-also called PAC- like he had been trained for, he was settling disputes between dogs and chickens.

The town that he worked for wasn’t a big city, but it wasn’t a dinky little country hick town either.  It was a small village and the people prided themselves on being perfectly civil.  The mayor was a thin fellow that looked as if he’d never eaten a day in his life.  He raised three kids on his own when his wife died along with many others in a wild bear attack years before.  To look at him you’d think you could pull anything on him, but those light brown eyes missed nothing.  He ran a strict line and it was meant to be kept taught.  Although he did have one soft spot that will turn up later.  It’d ruin the story if I told you now.

“See,” Tihllard huffed, pointing at the line of dead chickens in his back yard.
Tip looked around the pen, examined the bite marks, and just managed to stifle a groan.  The evidence pointed to a pack of foxes.  The creatures that took the most time to hunt and get rid of.  

“What’s the story?”  Tip knew he should have asked this back at the station, but he feared for his furniture and his ever-empty pocket.  

“I was just commin’ in from the fields to have lunch when I heard a ruckus in my back yard.  I runs back there as fast I could and my fence is all torn up and my chickens is dead!”  Tihllard was the kind of person whose grammar got worse as he spoke.  This time Tip did groan.  Not only were the enemy foxes, but they were brave ones.  Foxes usually attacked at night; what in the name of Mother Jenna had driven the foxes to attack during the day?  It wasn’t hunger; they had left there pray where it was.  

“Well, it wasn’t dogs, Tihllard,” said Tip, “we’ve got a family of gutsy foxes and if you want I’ll let you organize the hunt.”

“Now Tip,” Tihllard may be a boisterous old man, but very timid when it came to guns.  “You know I can’t organize nothin’ short of my kitchen shelf!  And ya' know I-“

“Its OK Tihllard, I was only joking.”  Tip grinned and turned toward the messed up pen.  “I’ll help you fix this after I get off work, k’?  It shouldn’t take too long.”

“Gee, thanks Tip.  Your one descent fellow, ya’ know?”

No, thought Tip, its because if you don’t get it done quickly, you tend to curse loudly and then your neighbors came to me to make you shut up.  This way, I get it done without having to file paper work.

He went back to the office to file and organize a hunting party to relocate the family of foxes.  Tihllard’s one weakness was animals…that didn’t belong to the Dargins.  He had been accused of trying to raise wolf cubs, a baby dear, and even a lion cub, (where he got it was still under investigation).  There was just no animal killing where Tihllard was concerned.  He may curse his birds, but he couldn’t live without them…in more ways than one.

Tip fell into bed that night drained and irritated.  If his life was boring he wouldn’t mind so much, but this was just stupid.  He had trained for the elite!  The training had been hard and bone braking, not to mention expensive, and where was he?  He was tying chicken wire together and nearly slitting his wrist doing it!  How can a town as small as this one have so many complaints!  They pride themselves on being civil but they can’t-and won’t- do anything!  

Praying for a peaceful day tomorrow, Tip fell asleep.

                                                                                         To be continued....