It was many and many a year ago in a village by the sea, where a woman lived whom you may know by the name of Cheyenne. She loved a man in the town very dearly, but this man participated in an entertainment called bull leaping. It was an extremely treacherous recreation that took him far away from her, sometimes for weeks at a time. He had to rely on the bull to catch him and if it didn't catch him, he could die. Cheyenne wanted the man to stop, she despised how far it took him from her and she didn't want to see him get hurt. She had heard countless stories of men leaving and never coming back from these matchups. So even though the man loved bull leaping, he agreed to stop because he loved Cheyenne very much.
It saddened Cheyenne to see how upset her lover was over the debate. She only wanted him to be safe and he just couldn't see that. There was always the tiniest shadow of skepticism when she tried to get him to see reason. After everytime they deliberated over it, Cheyenne felt a piece of her heart break a little more. She expressed how much she knew he wanted to get back to entertaining the community but she was insistent that it was just too perilous. More and more athletes were getting injured or killed at these games and Cheyenne simply couldn't stand the contemplation of one of them being him. Though he claimed to recognize where her sensibilities came from, hubris gradually started to take its shape. The man was very experienced and skilled at what he did and felt that Cheyenne was just trying to hold him back.
But, one day he broke his agreement and entered a tournament. Cheyenne became very angry with him and they argued like every time he tried to talk her into agreeing for him to sign up and ride again. She believed that he was being solipsistic and didn't care for her or her sorrow she felt when he was gone. He thought that she didn't want him to be happy and that she was being paranoid. Their shouts echoed out across the water. At this time, there was no land under the sea, it was vast and ever expansive. The ocean simply rose whenever Poseidon wished it to. But it was Poseidon's wife Amphitrite, the Goddess and Queen of the Sea, who heard the shouting and became inquisitive, so she willed the waters to rise so she could have a better look. Amphitrite felt sorrow for Cheyenne and indignation at the man, so she decided to curse the man in retaliation. Cheyenne left the man standing where he was on the outskirts of the village and stormed off.
Later that night, the man came home and Cheyenne was still very angry with him; however, she didn't want him to leave without at least trying to alleviate their dispute. But when she tried to reconcile with him, he shouted at her and told her that no matter what she said, he was still going to compete because she was selfishly robbing him of the entertainment and adrenaline that he enjoyed. The altercation escalated more and more until she vociferated that she didn't care if he never came back from his competition and that he should leave if he didn't care about her and so he left. As she sat and cried for her loved one, Cheyenne wrote a letter to her mother asking for advice. She told her mother all about the fight and what they had shouted at each other, she confessed to being afraid of what was going to happen to him and their relationship. But the letter would forever remain unsent. The letter read:
Dearest Mama,
I am in need of your advice. You are a strong woman of refinement and assurance. Anytime I asked you for your advice, you told me to remain true to myself but now I am not so sure. I learned best from watching and listening. I watched you work diligently and I listened to you send me to sleep each night with a melody. You taught me how to weave and because of that I learned patience and persistence in my tasks. But now I have completely lost my patience. My love wants to continue on with his dangerous endeavors and I fear for what may happen to him so far from home. I am at a loss for what to do. You once told me that the most important decision in your life is who you choose to marry and I thought he was the one Mama, I truly did. But you also told me to respect myself and that I can do no matter what. If he won't listen to me over his own safety, how can I trust him with mine? I have so many questions my dearest Mama, why won't he just listen to me and see that I care? I care more than anything, all I want is for him to be safe. But Mama I said such awful things! I told him that I didn't care if he never came back and that he should leave if he didn't care about me and he left! I never thought I would feel so terrible over something so trivial but it is something that keeps me up at night. What am I to do Mama?
Your daughter, Cheyenne
The day of the competition, because Amphitrite had felt such wrathfulness at the man and melancholy heartache for Cheyenne she decided the only curse to suffice for his punishment was death. As the man launched himself off of the back of the bull, something drove it away. The man inverted in the air and just as he righted himself, he realized there would be nothing to catch him. Fear coursed through him like Phobos and his brother Deimos themselves had gripped his heart in his chest. He hit the ground and was very still except for the feeble movement of his chest. But the man died from his injuries in a foreign city. When the news came to his birthplace, Cheyenne felt so terrible, she hadn't been able to apologize or stop him. She ran out into the ocean and wasted away. The people in town say she just went insane, shouting out his name, when she pitched herself off of land into the bottomless ocean.
Because the curse was her doing, Amphitrite felt commiseration for her heartache. So once more she used her gifts and used Cheyenne's body and the love she had for the man to create the Beaches of Cheyenne and spread them all around the world to create land under the sea. The water ebbed and flowed as land formed. This land was made of diminutive granules of the land that they walked on. Amphitrite felt that this could be a gift to all of humanity when she spread it to the world and so sailors and fisherman made altars on the oceanfront for her full of oil, honey, and milk, along with other belongings in order to appease the goddess. As Artemis and Apollo did their dance around the earth, the sea washed the sand granules away and more took their place. The cycle was never-ending and thus Cheyenne lived on in these fragments of land. But try and try as she might, the sand will always return, the water will stay in the fathomless sequence. And so, names may change, years may pass, the tide will rise and fall, but no matter how far she strides she'll never be reunited with her love.
They never found her body, no one can quite explain it, some say she's still alive. All they found was the letter that told about the fight they had and all the things she said. But everyone knows she ran out into the ocean and to this day they claim that you can go down to the water, by the shoreline and see her footprints in the sand. They would even claim to see her on the waterfront late at night. Some even say that she warns any who try to leave with the promise of no return, she tries to spare their loved ones from the aching sadness she carries with her for all of eternity. And so every night she walks the beaches of Cheyenne.
