SUMMARY: A continuing chapter that left us with the Tuckers finding a little girl tied to a car.

WARNINGS: PROFANITY, VIOLENCE

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a short action story. We learn a little more about the Tuckers and the things that make them different. I think You'll see that not many things are assumed about women in the Tuckers world. Like men then need to prove themselves.

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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 2 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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Her husband's words cut her to the bone... "...She's bait..."

Before he said that Beth Tucker just wanted to run out, put a jacket around that poor girl and give her a big hug her. She bet if she could get her back to Jericho that Gail Green could help her find a family to take her in. Heather Lisinski might even be able to help.

Now she felt ten times the empathy for the girl, but also anger. The type of anger that only parents can have when they see abuse and imagine if it were their own children. It explained the stone look on John Tucker's face. They weren't going to cut north and go around. John was going to get the girl.

They could see her from here with the riflescope. She couldn't be more than twelve years old. She looked starved and was shivering with he cold. The worst part was the rope around the girl's ankle securing her to the car. She was bait for anyone going by. It reminded John Tucker of big game hunters who tied out goats to attract lions for the kill, except here they was using someone's daughter to do it.

John Tucker was a caring and loving husband. He was the best father Beth had ever seen. This day and age called for hard people and right now his face was like granite.

"John, I see it in your eyes and you need to slow down. If you get tied up in this too fast things could go wrong."

She looked into his eyes and realized she wasn't getting through. She took his chin in her hands and turned his face to hers. "What are you going to do?"

He blinked first and then looked her in the eye "I'm going to slow down."

He thought for a minute and then started to detail a plan. "Beth, I want you to stay with the horses. If anything happens to me, I want you to ride straight back to town. Go straight across the bridge and tell the home patrol. Get Jake Green and tell him what happened."

She looked right back at him and thought that was the stupidest damn thing she had ever heard. It sounded like a line from some jackass cowboy movie. She started to argue with him... "If you think..."

Before she could finish the sentence he cut in "someone has to be there for the kids."

She thought about it for a moment and started to counter "which is why I am staying right here and helping you. You have always told us never to go anywhere alone and always to back each other up. Why do you expect me to stop now?"

She looked at John and he knew she had just kicked into stubborn mule mode. He'd harped on her for years about discipline and being consistent. Not only was she throwing that right back in his face, but she believed it the way she believed in God and her family. There was no use arguing.

"OK" She was right and he knew it. Two heads were better than one and doubled the chances for success. Isn't that what marriage is all about? "You're right."

"Right now, we're about 400 yards out. That's too far for the carbines. We need to get up to the next house. Take your radio and spare ammo. When we get there I want you up on that roof behind the chimney." She immediately went to her saddlebags and got the extra gear.

The radios were small little things, not good for more than a few miles. Lots of people thought the EMP wiped out everything electronic, but that simply wasn't true. Most of the things quit working because the power was gone. The pulse really did zap others. They had gone through twenty sets of radios at different houses and building before they found some that worked.

They got down behind a fence line and squat walked to the next house. In the back there was a patio with a grill. John wheeled the grill by the back door and Beth climbed on top of it. She then stood and tried to get onto the roof.

John whispered, "Watch out for the rain gutter."

She took the gutter into account and realized it really wouldn't hold her weight. She thanked the YMCA for her afternoon workouts as she braced her hands on the shingles and jumped her stomach up onto the roof. She swung her legs up onto the roof then straightened herself out.

She looked down at her husband and whispered a challenge "Let's see you find another mother of three that can do that!"

He just grinned and handed the scope up to her along with her carbine. The extra ammo was already jammed in her back pockets.

"Let me know if you see anything by just pressing the transmit button on the radio. Don't bother to say anything."

They had already discussed it. He was just being redundant. Once she was up there she would take a look around with the scope. Since they didn't have the hunting rifle it actually belonged on, she couldn't use it to shoot with. It wasn't a problem though because the sight on carbine would work at this distance. He would wait a few minutes and if she didn't click the radio he would get started.

Next to the house was a small grass field a few feet high. A cornfield would have been better, but every corn stalk for 20 miles had already been stripped. The grass field forced him to crawl on his stomach. That was slow and tiring. He went fifty yards past the car, but didn't see anything on this side of the road. As he turned around he looked and could barely see Beth on top of the house.

Suddenly he realized that someone might be inside the house. This had to be a trap and there was no one on this side of the road. What if the bad guys had a hunting rifle inside the house? They could see anyone that drove up to the car on the road. This was a huge screw up. If he went out on that road, he could be dead in a second.

He looked back at the house, but all the windows had glass and were dark. He picked up the radio and whispered for Beth to hear. "I just realized there could be someone in the house. Don't come off the roof until I get back up there." She just clicked the radio twice acknowledging that she heard.

Now he had to figure out how to get the girl without getting shot. Plan A had been to check both sides of the road before approaching her, but that was shot to hell. If he tried to get across the road there was a chance someone in the house might see him.

The only chance he had was to just run it and hope they didn't have a shot. The key now was to get as close as possible before he ran for it instead of being far away. Then he had to run to the far side of the car and surprise anyone there. Beth hadn't seen anything yet, so that meant he could be in the grass 5,20 or 50 feet back into the grass. There was a ditch over there that could give him some cover, but the bad guy wouldn't be there because a car pulling up could see him.

He thought for another minute then whispered the plan into the radio. Beth just whispered back "Love ya... Be safe."

As he crawled back through the grass he thought 'its not too late to just leave', but even as he thought it he knew there was no way they could leave her. If someone had his daughter, he would want others to help and that rope didn't exactly make her a willing participant in this ambush.

As he got even with the front of the car, he got to one knee. He was only about ten feet inside the grass but he was behind where the girl was sitting. As he sprinted he covered the thirty feet to the front bumper of the car in about five seconds. He glanced around the side of the car but his momentum was already carrying him into the ditch.

He was so stupid. It was too late. He was already heading into the ditch. He could back pedal behind the front of the car but that would only make it worse.

Growing up his father had taught him how to drive. He always told him to finish what he started, even if it was stupid. The idea was that hesitation would just compound a stupid mistake. If you pull out in front of an oncoming truck, pushing that gas harder might get you clear but trying to stop and reverse was definitely going to kill someone.

Well apparently he and the bad guy were having a contest to see who had the lower IQ. At this moment, trying to stop and reverse was definitely going to get him killed. He had already decided the bad guy wouldn't be in the ditch because that would be stupid. Well as John rounded the front bumper, there was the bad guy in the ditch. He was wearing hunter's camouflage and had a 12-gauge shotgun.

John yelled "F#!" and started to slide into the ditch.

The only thing that saved John's life at the moment was that the guy was lying in the ditch facing the wrong direction. The guy was already rolling over and trying to point the shotgun at the noise of John' running.

In the movies they always give the bad guy a chance to surrender. This wasn't a movie and it was a far cry from civilization. He literally had less than two seconds before that shotgun was pointed at him and he had no doubt that this man intended to do him harm. That was established when he tied that little girl to the car.

John Tucker brought the carbine to his shoulder. At this range, the optic on the rifle wasn't even needed. He fired two rounds into the man's center of mass. The bullets entered into the man's chest, but neither hit the heart. John fired the third shot into the head. Just as the man's head exploded, the shotgun went off.

Another half second and the guy in the ditch would have finished swinging the shotgun around. Instead it went into the front of the car. There was a second loud bang as the tire on the car explosively deflated.

The shotgun blast had half deafened him. His ears felt numb. He could see the little girl freaking out, but at the moment couldn't hear the screams.

Beth was looking through her sight as John ran around the front of the car. Then she heard the flurry of shots. She couldn't know what was going on, but she could see the girl yelling and screaming. At the sound of the shots she tried to run away from the car, but three feet later the rope around her ankle tripped her onto the asphalt. She was rolling around on the ground screaming.

Suddenly Beth realized she had been fixating on the scene at the car instead of watching around for anyone else. In the back of her mind she thought she had heard the storm door of the house crash open, but she wasn't sure that was what she had heard. By the time she took her eyes from the rifle she could see a man running across the front lawn of the house. He was already half way to the car.

She pulled the carbine tight to her shoulder and looked through the optic. In its center was a red dot. She didn't need to close both eyes or even squint. If the red dot was on the guy she would hit him. She swung the rifle over, placed the red dot on the man and pulled the trigger.

She kept looking through the optic sight and watched the bullet strike the ground just behind the man. The running man! Beth sighted again, but this time a little in front of the running man. She kept firing until she saw the man go down. Every time she pulled the trigger another rifle bullet went into the man's body. It took four more shots before she was sure he was dead.

John was just getting his hearing back when he heard another string of shots. The girl on the ground just kept freaking out, but didn't look like she had been hit. He sat upright and then moved to the rear corner of the old Bronco. The girl was at his feet trying to untie the rope. John wanted to help her, but needed another moment. He looked around the vehicle and saw a rather large male in a large pool of blood. He wasn't moving.

Beth had just gotten over shooting the one man, when another came around the vehicle. All she could see was boots and a rifle. She hoped it was John but couldn't tell because of the open hatch. She did the only thing she could do. She took aim, put her finger on the trigger and held he breath. She watched every little motion but held her fire. There were no good indications from the girl as she kept screaming and thrashing about.

As tense as she was watching the man by the vehicle, she twitched when the radio went off beside her. He finger started but did not pull on the trigger. That hesitation saved her husband's life.

"Beth, are you OK up there?"

Beth picked up the radio and asked "Is that you down by the Bronco?"

"Yeah, that's me. I'm coming out. Why don't you come on down?" John was listening for a response but it was mumbled. "Beth? What was that?"

The radio screamed her response " I said you're an ahole and I almost shot you."

John said the only thing he could under the circumstance "OK ... see you in a minute"

John knew they were taking another risk, by both coming together. He hoped there were only two, but the person that could confirm that was still screaming her head off.

She looked up at John and he could see the fear in her eyes. This girl had been through a hundred times more than any little girl should. She was frantic. Until now, he could only imagined what an abused girl's eyes looked like. There was a depth to them that seemed bottomless.

He took his rifle, put it on safe, and slung it on his back. He could still get to his pistol if he needed to. Beth would be here in a few minutes, but this girl needed some reassurance now, before she hurt herself. He had no idea what to do.

Slowly and in a soft voice, he began to sing to her. "Hush little girl, don't you cry." He mangled the lullaby completely. He could put any of their babies to sleep in 10 minutes, but he never bothered to learn the actual words. He figured the kids didn't really know any better. He really made most of them up as they went. This girl was eleven, twelve, or thirteen ... who knows but she just needs a reassuring voice.

Slowly the girl started to calm down. The screams became whimpers. The whimpers became muted crying. As Beth walked up John felt like an ass. He looked up at his wife and couldn't tell what the expression was on her face. "Its all I could think of."

She reassured him and she started to kneel down beside the girl. "Its OK. Looks like it had the right effect."

John didn't know what else to do. He was heavily into uncharted territory here. "Beth? Maybe I should take a walk and get the horses. I doubt she needs more men around her. Not after what these guys have done."

She didn't even look up from girl, who was now cradled in her arms. "That's a good idea. We're going to take it nice and easy right here for a few minutes. Could you spare your coat for her?"

John cursed himself for not thinking of that and handed it right over. He'd get cold but he had dressed in layers so it wouldn't be too bad. His wife knew he had enough body heat to spare.

As her husband walked away, Beth looked the girl over head to toe. She was filthy and in some places bloody. There were cuts on her hands and face. She couldn't tell if the girl was blue from the cold or if she was bruised that badly.

She put the coat around the girl and looked at the rope. It was a cheap nylon rope with some ugly knot around her ankle. The girl's ankle was swollen purple. She may have been wearing this rope for weeks, but the running and thrashing she had just done made it ten times worse. The knot was pulled so tight she couldn't see an end to pull out. It also looked like it was cutting off circulation to the girl's foot.

Luckily Beth carried just he tool for the job. John carried a large knife, but Beth had always preferred an EMT seat belt cutter. The blade for it was protected inside a plastic loop and she could just throw it in a pocket. She pulled it out now and reached down to the girl's ankle.

She hooked the cutter under the rope and slowly pulled it forward. The girl winced in her grip, but there wasn't anything Beth could do. The rope had to come off. The girl seemed to realize she was helping, even if it hurt a little. Beth pulled a little more and the blade started cutting the rope. One more little pull and the rope was free.

The girl looked up at Beth. That expression told Beth that it was going to be OK. Maybe not tomorrow... Maybe not the day after... She was going to need time.