The Beagle

A beagle howled in the distant hills.  Somewhere a rabbit was having a bad day.

Jake Duffy slammed the door on his rusty blue 1978 Chevy truck with a metallic thunk. He laughed — It was a miracle the door just didn’t fall off onto the frost-covered grass. Winter held its grip on East Tennessee.  The surrounding mountains were painted in gray and brown brushstrokes. A blanket of snow capped the distant peak of Mount LeConte.

The fence was broken from a fallen cedar tree.  Jake rustled around for his work gloves and his hammer. He pulled the wire and boards from his truck and prepared to get to work.  Sunrise came late this time of year and he had a ton of work to do back at the house. The sun had already peaked its head over the distant mountains.  The law and this broken fence wouldn’t wait.

The beagle howled again.  Jake smiled and thought of the beagle he had as a child.  The damn dog’s brain was in its nose.

The good news was that none of his cows had gotten loose.  That was one of the reasons he had gotten to the back part of the farm so quickly after the storm.  He had the world’s laziest cows: They didn’t produce milk. They produced butter.  And they sure didn’t hurry off when there was a breach in the fence. A Jersey cow wandered up the hill to investigate what was going on.

“Good morning, Iris,” Jake said.

“Moo.”

Talking to cows was easier than dealing with people.  At least the cows were innocent. And in some cases smarter.

Being a District Attorney in these parts meant you dealt with a lot of Methamphetamine cases.  Jake never understood the appeal of drugs.  But meth completely escaped him. Methamphetamine was made from ephedrine in Japan in 1893 by chemist Nagai Nagayoshi.  And it was all downhill from there. Why someone would want to destroy so much for the sake of getting high was a complete mystery to him.  He had come home to fight the toughest war he had fought yet.

“Moo.”

“I’ll get the fence done, don’t you worry.”

Iris didn’t seem to believe him.

Jake was first in his law class at Harvard Law. He had a stack of offers from the top firms in New York but he had done what he always did: He took his own path. He joined the Army, joined the J.A.G. Corps and served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.  He saw things that would make the toughest Marine cry.  That’s why he came home. Instead of trying to make a difference in the mountains in Afghanistan, he thought he’d try to help his own community.

It was rewarding and at the same time frustrating.

He checked his Timex.  “Sorry Iris. I’d love to chat. But I have bad guys to prosecute.”  His first case was in two hours.

Iris seemed offended and headed back down the hill to join the rest of the herd.

He put the broken parts of the fence in the back of his truck. He looked at his old truck. His classmates drove Porsches and BMWs.  They’d look down their rich noses at his ride.

During  a rocket attack in God-knows-where, Afghanistan, he had made a promise to God and himself that’d he never be like his classmates. That he’d make a difference in this world. Some days he doubted he had.  But on other days, the days when he saved a child from a meth lab or helped a good kid get clean, well, he felt like he was keeping up his end of the bargain with God.

That’s why he bought the farm. That’s why he came up to fix the fence. He needed to see that snow-capped peak at Mount LeConte to remind himself that there was indeed a higher power. That there was good in the world.  Because between two wars and now a war on Meth, he had had his faith challenged.

The beagle howled again.  A gunshot rang out. The rabbit probably needed more than a good lawyer at this point.

Now it was time for him to go be a beagle.  It was time to chase down a few rabbits of his own.

Jake Duffy put the truck in drive and headed to the County Courthouse. It was time to make a difference in his hometown.  It was time to make another payment on a debt.  It was time to go after the bad guys.

The beagle howled. He had picked up another scent and was hot on the trail once again.