SUMMARY: The beginning chapter featuring a Jericho family that walks in the shadows of the Jericho Canon. Here they are on just another Jericho day.

WARNINGS: None

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I feel a few things are missing from Jericho. For one, where are the middle class families with children? For another, does everyone run around in the dark expecting someone to save them? The Tuckers are an attempt, if idealized, to show some other townspeople who aren't at the center of every episode, but for all the right reasons. I'll tie them back to the main characters shortly.

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FEEDBACK POLICY: Whether it is myself or any other author I encourage you to register and leave feedback. It encourages and rewards you and the author. It moves stories that you like back up where people can read them. Constructive comments encourage the writers by letting them know what you liked and disliked. In my case, it allowed audience participation in the writing process. Everybody benefits from good feedback.

DISCLAIMER: The name "Jericho" and all character names and trademarks associated with the television program are the intellectual property of Junction Entertainment, Fixed Mark Productions, CBS Paramount Television and/or CBS Studios, Inc. The following stories are works of fan fiction intended solely as an intellectual exercise without profit motive. No infringement of copyright is intended or should be implied.
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TITLE: Tuckers- Meet The Tuckers - Chapter 1 of 4
AKA: (1-09)Crossroads

STORY TYPE: Complements Episodes with Alternate Characters
TIMELINE: 200X1203 (Bombs+64)
EPISODE GUIDE: after (1-14)Heart of Winter, before (1-15)Semper Fidelis
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Quote from: 'NOTE FROM THE FUTURE'

'NOTE FROM THE FUTURE'

To whom it may concern,

Forgive my clunky sentences and chunky flow. When I started this series I hadn't done any creative writing in twenty years and had no idea I would still be writing today. There are flaws and errors everywhere, but I believe the basic premise is sound.

At the time of this comment, I have written more than a thousand pages and I promise it gets better. Feedback has been key, but I've also had some really good betas along the way. For now, ignore the amateur mistakes and concentrate on the plot and characters. Maybe some day I can come back and clean this stuff up, but unless someone pays me to do it or I win the lottery the chances are slim.

Thank You,
JT

Beth and John Tucker were riding their horses just the other side of the river. Jericho only had a road or two going into town, but there were all sorts of places to cross over on horse or by foot. In fact, their property was on both sides of the river.

They got up early and tended to the farm. John to the cattle and Beth to the milk and eggs. She always finished first, but that meant she got back to the house just as the kids were waking up. After breakfast, they dropped the kids at the Lawters and picked up the horses.

The Tuckers and Lawters took turns 'wandering'. In the military they would call it reconnaissance. In the animal kingdom it was foraging. The idea was to go outside the boundaries of Jericho and check farms and houses for salvage. At first they found all sorts of things but they were fast approaching diminishing returns. The simple fact was that they had checked every place they could get to in a day on horseback. Four hours out at 4 mile per hour meant they could check about 16 miles. Soon they would have to make the trips overnight or start using the truck. With winter coming the truck would be a better idea, but they didn't want to use up any more of the diesel than they had to.

"Honey, I'm cold ... its too early to do this." John knew she had to say it. It was a morning ritual going back as long as they had been married. At first he would answer her, as if he could solve her problem. Now he knew it was just something she needed to say.

Instead of saying anything, he just nudged his horse closer to hers and handed her the baby bottle bag from his saddle bags. She looked at him with a question but, took the bag and looked inside. Her face brightened and she smiled from ear to ear. "I knew there was a reason I married you."

That smile was all he needed, but he had to remind her "When they're cold, put them back in the bag. Those are for breakfast tomorrow."

With a nod, she took the hot baked potatoes and put them in her coat pockets. She still needed to hold her reins but she could alternate putting her hands in her pockets.

This trip they were going to cut across the main road near the river bridge. Since they didn't want to advertise their trip they would go about a mile out then go straight across the road.

What they were doing wasn't illegal in this day and age, but neither did they want to be seen by the home patrol at the bridge. The town was full of nice people, but there were more and more that expected hand outs. They could be doing the same thing as the Tuckers, but instead they sat around all day waiting for a government, that so far, hadn't come.

Mayor Gray was making everything worse by confiscating food from the farms that were still producing and giving it to the people that were sitting around. The Tuckers knew most of the farmers around. They would be happy to share or to trade in return for labor since most of the machinery was down.

Instead Gray just sent the deputies out with some hand scribbled writ to turn out their barns and sheds to the town. Most already had deals with ex-Mayor Green to trade their crops and give the excess to the town. Johnston Green would then use it to pay the people on home patrol and at the medical center. He also made sure the elderly and people with children got rations.

Gray got elected by the do-nothings by promising to give them something for nothing. In the end, the town would have nothing to give them and it would get ugly.

They rode for a while in the cold. John broke the silence, "We'll be crossing the road soon. Finish waking up and make sure you have everything where you can get to it."

Beth looked at him with a grin and replied "Okay dokey Mr. General." The grin then changed to a very serious look. She had three kids at home, and she was coming home tonight. If she had to kill someone to get home safely she would do it. It would sound like a cliche in a suburb driving a mini van with the soccer ball in the back window on the way back from the grocery store. Here and now, it was just a fact of life.

They both unzipped the lower half of their winter coats and swept the coat backward. He pulled his coat to the right exposing a large framed 45. She swept hers to the let and exposed a smaller polymer frame 9mm. This was just a check and they let the coats fall back down into place.

They then pulled the carbine rifles around on their slings and made sure nothing had not gotten tangled up. The carbines looked like military rifles but were really civilian models anyone could have bought. Most politicians called them assault weapons, but Beth always though of hers as a 'cool chick's gun'. With the red dot sight it was really just a point and shoot weapon with very little kick.

They never carried the carbines in Jericho because they knew Gray would try and confiscate them. Not because they were illegal, but because they were better than anything the deputies had and were very valuable. In fact, just one of these rifles could feed a family for the winter down at the blackjack market. In town they kept their pistols concealed and carried older hunting rifles like the deputies and a few other people in town.

They paused at a tree line and checked up and down the main road. The bridge was out of sight and there were no cars on the road. They crossed quickly and rode past the first dozen houses and farms. Near the road, they had been picked over already. Either by the Tuckers or by Jonah and his group.

The difference between Jonah and the Tuckers wasn't evident at first. Both were salvaging abandoned food and fuel from people that were dead or gone. Lots came from corporate farms or companies with no real owners to begin with.

The difference started to show when they had more than they could use. The Tuckers gave the excess to then Mayor Green to ration out. Jonah on the other hand tried to extort exorbitant prices from people with nothing to give. It was rumored some people had encouraged their daughters to 'date' the men at Jonah's compound in exchange for food.

They checked their map looking for houses that hadn't been searched. The Tuckers and the Lawters used the same map and notebook. They would check a house then note it in the book and on the map. If there were goods worth salvaging they would come back in the truck at night. If there was stuff they didn't need, but might some day, they made a note of it. If they found the previous owner, they would do their best to give them a quick burial.

They were two hours from their home, when they found undocumented houses. The drill was to put the horses out back on long leads. They could rest and graze a little. None of these houses would be inhabited. If the people were alive they had pulled back into town. Occasionally they did find someone in a farm, but even that was becoming rare.

The house was a simple one story with a few bedrooms. There was a deck on the back of the house but no fence. They went to the back door with pistols drawn. The door was locked, but a quick tap on the glass broke out the window. John reached in and unlocked the door. First impressions were probably correct but they still checked the house from end to end. They never seperated and always were in a spot to support each other.

The quick story was that this was a commuter who never made it home. The evidence was the car missing from the garage and the dead cat in the house. Everything was in the house as it had been on the day of the bombs.

They found some food, clothes and guns, but nothing that the Tuckers or Lawters would really need right away. Only the pistol was small enough to take with them. They detailed the rest in the notebook and would come back with the truck one night. They would need about ten homes to make it worth a trip. Checking the notebook it might take a while to find that many. They checked five more houses and a farm. Only one other house held goods worth going back for, but the farm was a gold mine.

On the farm, the main fuel storage and barns were empty, but there were several tractors and farm trucks. They would never run again, but no one had emptied their fuel tanks. There could be hundreds of gallons of diesel in them. That alone could be worth a trip in the truck.

On the way back they circled farther out along a secondary road. They could see the front doors left open on the houses and knew Jonah's people had already come through. They might be petty criminals and cretins, but if they stripped a house, there was nothing left but the walls.

Instead of riding the horses on the road, they stayed behind the houses. In the rare case they came across a fence they would cut it or go around it. The most dangerous part was just being seen. In this part of Kansas, it was pretty flat and almost no trees. Someone could see you a quarter or half mile away if they were really looking.

It was mid afternoon and they were halfway home when they saw a car in the distance. If it had been just a car in a ditch they would have just kept going, but this one was in the middle of the road and there was someone with it.

"Beth, do you see what I see?"

"I do ... Should we cut further north and ride around?"

"We could, but something doesn't feel right. That looks more like a kid than an adult."

"Let's put the horse behind the next house and take a look."

With that they both slowly walked the horses a few hundred yards. Instead of putting the horses on the long leads they tied them right up against the house using the deck railing as a hitching post. They then walked up to the corner of the house. John had taken a rifle scope from his saddle bags and held it up. It magnified the scene at the car like he was just a few feet away.

There was a dirty scrawny girl sitting in the back of an old Ford Bronco II. The hatch door was up and the girl sat there with her legs hanging out.

John handed the scope over to his wife. As a mother, her first revulsion was that she was looking at this twelve year old through cross hairs. She could see the girl shivering. The empathy she felt for the girl ... well only mothers can feel it at this magnitude.

"Imagine if that were Emma," referring to their own eight year old daughter.

"I'm trying not to."

"I know we said no refugees, but its just a little girl. She'll die out here."

"Its worse than that."

Stricken by his words, Beth put down the scope and looked at John. "What does that mean?" He was hard man when he needed to be, but he was also the most loving father and husband she could have hoped for. Right now the look on his face was stone.

"Look at her left ankle." Beth had a question on her face, but he just gestured back in the girl's direction. Beth lifted the scope to her eye and looked. On the girl's left ankle was a rope. The other end was tied to the vehicle hitch.

Beth felt her husband beside her as he whispered in her ear "...she's bait ..."