Disclaimer: I do not own Phantom Stallion. Some of the sentences are directly from the first book, and are not my own words.
A/N: This is a glimpse - emphasis on the glimpse - of Jake's side of the accident and what he went through.
"You have to eat something, honey. It will make you feel better."
Jake inhaled. The sheets smelled like sweat, with just the barest trace of laundry detergent.
He ignored his mother.
The door to the guest bedroom creaked open wider. Mom's heels clicked across the wooden floor, and then over the rug next to the bed. She must have just gotten home from work.
Jake hadn't realized it was daylight. He could have sworn it was the middle of the night.
The bed dipped and Mom's hand rested on his covered shoulder. He was curled up, the blankets tight around his face and body despite the heat.
"You should try calling her, Jake. She might be allowed to talk now."
His fists grasped the sheets tighter to control his shaking fingers.
Mom waited for him to move. Her hand ran up and down his arm in a comforting sort of way, but all it did was make him feel uncomfortable. He didn't want to be hugged, or touched, or coddled.
He wanted to be left alone. He wanted to go back in time and help her.
Mom sighed. "Your brothers are taking a break later and going up to the sweat lodge. Why don't you go?" She ran her hand over his tightened neck muscles. "It might help relieve all this tension."
Jake let out a breath of barely contained anger. They knew he normally would have loved to go. And Mom wasn't going to fool him – he could smell barbecue downstairs, his absolute favorite. They were trying to lure him out of the guest bedroom and back into the real world. They were offering him all his favorite things and trying to cheer him up.
Mom shifted. Jake tensed even more when he felt her body pressed up against his, hugging him from behind.
"Please let us help you, Jake." Her voice was teary and panicked. When her hand reached around him to grasp his own, her fingers were shaking too.
Jake wished Mom could make it all better. He wished a barbecue and a miniature family getaway was the solution.
He felt guiltier when he both heard and felt Mom start to cry. She buried her head in the bed behind him and tried to stop.
"Please, Jake. No one is blaming you."
He knew his face was clammy and pale as he stared blankly at the checkered green and black pattern of the bedspread. He knew, without a doubt, that if he closed his eyes he'd see her. Her long red hair would be soaking in blood and her face would be still and blank.
He would be ahead of her, shouting at her to stop being a baby and hurry up.
It didn't matter if anyone was blaming him or not.
He blamed himself.
Dad made him get back on a horse a week and a half after it happened.
Jake wasn't scared. He loved riding. He just . . . couldn't bring himself to saddle up and ride back out on the range.
Quinn looked mad when Jake purposefully saddled up his horse instead of the one Jake usually rode. Dad put a hand on Quinn's shoulder to stop him from complaining.
When his brothers had been reminded which chores they were to do, Jake went to follow. Dad motioned for him to stop.
"Now I'm never gonna say this again, Jake, but why don't you take it easy today? Just go for a ride, follow your brothers, follow me. Doesn't matter, but you can take it easy."
Jake kept his face blank even though he felt insulted. For the past week he'd been avoiding doing any chores that required he be on a horse. He'd thought for sure that Dad would tan his hide if he didn't go back to what he should be doing.
They were still giving him special treatment. As though he deserved it.
Jake knew better than to argue with his father though, so he nodded briefly and rode out.
The further he rode, the more his head hurt. Even though his horse was only walking, he heard hooves echoing in his ears as though he was galloping. He heard the scream again, and saw the blurry images of the world around him as he turned to see what happened.
He saw his hand reaching out in front of him, trying desperately to grab Blackie's reins.
Jake stopped his horse only yards from his house. The images and the sounds went away.
He listened.
The wind blew past him and a cow moo'ed in the distance.
She wasn't riding behind him, begging to come along or asking him if she could help. She wasn't following him. She wasn't there anymore.
He turned his horse around and rode home again.
Darrell sat across from him at the lunch table, his baseball hat on backwards and his face more anxious than Jake thought possible.
School had started today, about three hours ago, and even though they had every class together they had yet to say a word to one another.
Jake didn't want to talk.
"So . . ." Darrell began. He waited for Jake to butt in, tell him a joke, smile and talk about the upcoming drag race in Reno this weekend. Jake had been talking about it for months.
Instead, he dipped a nacho in his cheese and pointedly stared at the table.
Darrell knew not to ask about her. His brothers had probably warned him earlier. She was an off-limit topic.
Eventually, Darrell gave up on starting any form of conversation. He turned to their other friends, who either didn't notice or care that Jake was acting different.
Jake quietly finished his lunch and exited the cafeteria early. As he walked passed his table to leave, he heard their whispers.
"What's wrong with him?" It was his and Darrell's friend Blaine. He glanced at Jake from the corner of his eyes.
"There was an accident . . ." Was all Jake heard Darrell say before he pushed open the doors and let them shut loudly behind him.
An accident. Such a simple explanation for something that had ruined his life.
It was midnight and he couldn't sleep again. Quinn was snoring and Nate was cramming for a test, so Jake padded his way into the kitchen to steal some food.
He stopped short when he heard whispers through the wooden door.
"His teacher called me today," said Mom. "She . . . well, she thinks we should consider scheduling an appointment with the school counselor."
Jake's face flushed and he took a surprised step back from the door.
There was silence for many moments before Dad's low, rumbling voice spoke.
"He would hate it, Maxine." Another pause. "But –" His voice lowered to the point where Jake had to practically stick his head in the kitchen to hear. " – it's not normal."
Mom drew in a shaky breath, as though Dad had just confirmed her worst fears. A horrible truth finally spoken aloud.
"I know," she said. "He's – he's not the same anymore, Luke. He barely talks. He's constantly thinking about her. His teacher said he's barely interacting with his friends at all. What are we supposed to do? It's been over a month since the accident."
She paused for a moment, and he could hear her sniffle – she was crying.
"He's only thirteen. He shouldn't have to deal with any of this."
Jake stared at the door hard, willing his parents to say something that pushed him over the edge. But they were silent for so long he almost gave up and walked away.
"I'll call Wyatt tomorrow and talk to him. See if Samantha is allowed to talk yet. They've been shielding her. She misses home. If that doesn't work –" He cut off again and sighed. "If that doesn't work, we'll set up an appointment."
Jake backed away from the door. He went back to his room, flipped Nate's light off – which did not make his brother happy – and crawled in his bed, determined to fall asleep.
He wouldn't let them treat him like a baby. He didn't need anyone to lecture him and tell him it wasn't his fault; he was tired of people lying to him just to spare his feelings.
Jake finally dozed off, deciding that if he had to move on with his life, he'd do it like a man.
When he finally woke up out of his daze, the fight only got harder.
People whispered behind his back – and not only kids, either.
Jake avoided Riverbend as much as he could, which was easy to do now that he had no reason to visit. The Elys and Forsters had frequent communications – the men talking about the ranch, and Grace and Mom talking about new casseroles and desserts.
Jake knew Mom always asked the Forsters about Sam, but he refused to listen to what she tried to tell him. He wasn't ready yet. He was afraid of what he would hear.
Thanksgiving came, and the Elys invited the Forsters for a small dinner party. Jake knew it was his parents' way of distracting the Forsters around the holidays; it would be their first without Sam at home.
Grace brought a picture of Sam. Jake caught one glimpse of her, her hair cut shorter than usual and her face pale and unusually skinny. She was sitting on a bench on a regular street, but he could see part of the Golden Gate Bridge behind her. Her smile was weak, and forced, and nothing like he remembered it. He looked away.
Jake was convinced that Mom had designed a seating chart just to annoy him - she sat him between Grace and Wyatt. They smiled and laughed with the rest of them, but Jake could tell they were tired and that they missed Sam. Even when they weren't thinking about her, they missed her. He knew the feeling.
Towards the end of the night, even though Jake had adamantly been avoiding Wyatt's gaze, Sam's dad stopped him and stooped down a couple of inches to look him in the eyes.
"We miss you over there, Jake. Don't be a stranger."
Wyatt gave him a pat on the back and walked out of the door. Jake didn't know how the man had done it, but a weight lifted right off of Jake's shoulders, and after months of torture, he could breath again.
Time passed.
Jake turned fourteen – and Sam still wasn't there. Sometimes he would be all alone, just as he'd always wanted when he was little, only to turn around and wish Sam was there behind him, chatting and pestering him.
She taught him the meaning of "You know never know what you have until it's gone".
People slowly stopped talking about the accident, about the sad little boy and the missing daughter of Wyatt Forster. The Elys had a bad year, barely making it through without losing the ranch. Multiple families were forced to sell to new blood in the area – the Slocums – and Jake realized that everything was changing. His hometown was emptied of people he'd once known, replaced by money-loving wannabes.
The Forsters struggled, too. Dad started to send Jake over to Riverbend often to see if they needed help.
One morning, before the sun had even come up, Jake was in their barn feeding the horses when Wyatt sneaked up behind him.
"We're due to get a new one in today," he said, waving at the stalls to let Jake know he was talking about a horse.
Wyatt cleared his throat when Jake didn't answer. "A mustang. It'll need broken."
Jake nodded, wondering if it would be one of the horses he saw daily out on the range.
Wyatt rubbed the back of his neck briefly before tugging his hat down lower over his eyes.
"Could use your help, if you're willing."
Jake stopped working and turned around to stare at the man in surprise.
"I – I can't –"
Wyatt cut him off. "You can. You're good with horses, Jake. I could use you."
Jake nodded, completely speechless. The last chance he'd had at working with a horse had been Blackie. And Wyatt was still willing to trust him . . .
Wyatt grinned and nodded his head in farewell. "Thanks, Jake. You're a good kid."
The next morning Jake set out to do his chores at Three Ponies with circles under his eyes and an upset stomach. His nightmares had been worse than they were in months last night.
It was summer again – the first summer without Sam – and so the temperatures were blistering and the sun beat down on his face all day. By suppertime he was bone tired.
Before Jake could walk into the house, Dad came out of his office and stopped Jake in his tracks.
Dad's face was grim and unsure, and it made Jake even more anxious than he already had been.
"Tomorrow get your chores done early. After that, head on over to Riverbend."
Dad said no more. Wyatt must have asked his parents about using Jake. It didn't bother him – in fact, he felt much better knowing that more than one person seemed to think he was capable. Excitement bubbled up in him; the chance to tame a horse. A mustang.
Jake had spent most of his life dreaming of this day.
A flash of uncertainty clouded over his thoughts briefly – a voice reminding him he'd already been in charge of helping Sam with Blackie. But Jake remembered the smile Wyatt had given him, and considered how much of a risk he was taking, asking a fourteen-year-old to take a mustang and tame him. Wyatt had paid money for that horse. He was counting on Jake.
A little piece of guilt, previously embedded in his heart, broke off that day and Jake swore he'd prove himself.
"We've named him Ace."
Jake watched the bay mustang jog nervously around the corral in front of him. Wyatt stood by his side, his hat tipped back and a small smile on his face.
"He's a clever one," said Wyatt. Most all horses were clever, Jake wanted to say. But instead he watched the mustang jog in silence; Ace clearly didn't like the confined area.
"What's your plan?" asked Jake, the first words he'd spoken since he'd gotten there.
Wyatt shrugged. "Thought we could work that out together."
That summer was a blur of hard work, sweat, and achievement for Jake.
He helped Wyatt with Ace, until the man eventually let Jake work with him on his own with the promise of more horses in the future. Wyatt would buy them, give them a home, but Jake would break them. And then, Wyatt had suggested, if they found the right buyer they'd split the profits.
Sometimes, especially at Riverbend, he'd still look for Sam – an unconscious movement to fill the empty space in his life. She'd been there next to him for so many years, it didn't seem natural that she wasn't anymore.
But as time went on, life distracted Jake. He joined the high school track team. He assimilated back into Darrell's circles of friends. Heck Ballard from the police station asked him to help track something every once in a while. Days passed by where he didn't think about the accident hardly at all.
He could look at something that reminded him of Sam and instead of feeling guilt over her injury, he would smile and remember something funny they'd done, or said, or some type of trouble they'd gotten into.
Until one day, Mom handed him a slip of paper. Her face was hesitant but her eyes were gleaming with barely contained happiness.
"I just hung up with Grace." Jake studied the paper in his hand. A phone number.
"She said we can call anytime," said Mom. "She said Sam still misses home and would love to talk."
Jake looked at the foreign area code. He numbly handed the paper back to Mom, barely registering that her face had fallen and she looked concerned again.
"Jake –"
He inhaled, moving his entire upper body with the effort, and she stopped short.
"It still hurts, Mom. I – I can't."
The wound had been re-opened. She still misses home. She wasn't happy. She shouldn't have been in San Francisco to begin with. Jake felt bile rise in his throat as an image of Blackie bucking flashed from his memory.
Mom hugged him gently, the first time he'd let her in months, and it made him realize just how much taller than her he was now.
"She doesn't blame you, Jake. Stop blaming yourself."
He wished it were that easy. He wished he could talk himself out of feeling guilty. He wished he could place all the blame on Blackie or just label it a "freak accident". But the cold, hard facts were drilled into his mind: That accident wouldn't have happened if he hadn't let them ride so far out that day, or if he hadn't tried to push the inexperienced horse and rider to the edge. Sam was just a kid; she hadn't known how to handle the situation. Blackie was young, too; he hadn't been familiar with the concept of a gate and his nervous rider had made him panic.
Jake shouldn't have let any of it happen. He had been responsible for taking care of Sam and her horse that day, and he'd turned his back and called her a baby.
He allowed Mom to hug him for a few more moments before prying her arms off of him.
"Maybe someday, Mom," he told her. "But not today."
The summer before his sixteenth birthday, Wyatt offered him another job.
"Already talked to Luke about it, " Wyatt said. "Cattle drive's coming up in a couple weeks. Would you be willing to help me out?"
Jake didn't hesitate to agree. "Yeah."
Wyatt patted him on the back, his smile wide and lighter than Jake had seen in a long time. He should have known something was going on.
But he didn't until Wyatt blindsided him.
"Samantha's gonna be here," he said. "We're gonna bring her along, too."
Jake tugged his hat down to cover his eyes and stared at the ground.
Wyatt let him take that in for a couple moments before continuing.
"You'll help me keep an eye on her?" He asked.
All Jake could do was nod. His heart was beating fast and his head felt like it was turning upside down. Wyatt was still willing to put his trust in Jake.
"Of course," Jake replied. His voice was lower than usual and he still couldn't meet the other man's eyes.
Wyatt patted him on the back again and walked away.
There were no words.
The sky and ground tumbled around him. He was flying through the air.
He hit the ground hard, dust spiraling around him and the horse he'd been riding jogged away.
"Oh Jake, what's wrong?"
Her voice was disorienting – not exactly the same as he remembered it, but so familiar it made his heart pound. It was almost like a dream; like he had hit his head and imagined it.
He blinked and his vision cleared. Wyatt was leaning against the fence. And she was really there, standing right next to him.
Jake stood straight up, grabbed his hat and pounded the dust out of it. Wyatt was chuckling, but he didn't stop to think about why.
She was smirking. Her small smile of mischief hadn't changed a bit since she was eleven, and her eyes still shined with some sort of trouble – like she knew she was being a brat, but she just didn't care.
"Well, if it ain't Samantha. Still skinnier than a wet weasel, aren't you, Sam?"
The words came easily. He'd been afraid it wouldn't be the same between them. His parents and the Forsters had always insisted that Sam never blamed him, but he'd half been expecting her to stare at him accusingly and scowl.
Instead, his best friend was perched on the fence rail, a couple of years older but still taking his insult with a grin and a carefree laugh.
"Jake, you leave Sam alone 'til she's had a chance to catch her breath."
Grace was hurrying over. The look on her face was enough to make him look away in embarrassment; this was their family reunion, and Grace had missed her granddaughter fiercely every day she'd been gone.
"Gram." Sam's voice was teary, but it was filled with joy and excitement.
"Besides, Sam looks like a nice young lady. Not a weasel," Grace said. She fussed with Sam's short hair, which Jake had been surprised to see. If it hadn't been for her foreign clothes and choppy hair, it almost would have been like Sam had just gone away for the week, and they were welcoming her back. She fit right back in their lives without any awkwardness – this was her home.
"You'll see that for yourself, Jake, when you've showered up for dinner and washed the dust out of your eyes."
Jake grinned. It felt good to get scolded for teasing Sam. It had been too long since he had.
"Where's Ace?" Sam was breathless with excitement.
Jake's face was blank in shock. Instead of giving her a stern look like Jake had been expecting, Wyatt just shouldered her backpack and walked towards the house like nothing was wrong.
"Let me drop these inside and I'll show you."
Jake knew Ace – he remembered one of the very first things Wyatt had ever said to him about that mustang: He's a clever one.
"You're givin' her Ace?" He blurted, uncharacteristically shouting after his boss. Wyatt ignored him.
"Ace?" He repeated, visions of everything he and Wyatt had done to tame that mustang flashed through his mind. "You gotta be kidding," he muttered restlessly.
Sam was looking up at him. She was at least a foot shorter than him, maybe more. He'd always been taller than her, but now it was different; their drastic height difference spoke volumes, reminding him of how much time they'd spent apart.
"Ace's smarter than you and me put together." Her eyes were flashing in defiance. She was just as fierce as he remembered as she looked up at him in contempt. He could practically guess her next words.
"Then he and I ought to do just fine."
"Yeah? You're quite some rider, are you, Zorro?"
The effortlessness of his teasing words reminded Jake so much of his childhood. It had been too long since he'd let himself go. Since he hadn't had the guilt of her accident resting over him. It had been way too long since she'd been standing in his shadow, arguing with him and insisting she could do anything he could.
"Excuse me? Guess I've been in civilization so long I just plum ran out of cowboy duds."
Her joking words made him worry. Wyatt choosing to give her Ace made him worry. She couldn't get hurt again. She might go away forever.
"You kids knock it off." Wyatt was back, his scolding tone amused and worry-free.
Jake put aside his fears. At least for today. Today, he would let himself be happy.
"I was only telling Sam how glad I am to see her."
It would have been weird if they'd opened their arms and hugged each other. But wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer – the first hug he'd probably initiated between the two of them – felt so right. She was here. She was happy.
"You'll help me keep an eye on her?"
Sam ran forward to follow Wyatt, her smile wide and excited as he pointed out Ace in the pasture.
This was his second chance. This time, he wouldn't fail.
AN: I did this in a "drabble-ish" format on purpose. Each section represents only a little of what Jake was feeling after the accident.
I'm going to do one more chapter like this, flashing from book one through the last book, of Jake's POV. That is, if anyone liked this story, I will lol. Otherwise, I'm gonna leave this how it is. AND, if anyone is interested in this being continued, I would love to take suggestions on which parts of the books you'd like Jake's POV in.