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History |
"They packed up all his
buckles,
And shipped his saddle to his dad.
By the way the house looked
She must have took it bad.The
workers come on Monday
To fix the door and patch the wall.
They say she just went crazy
The night she got the call.
He was up in Wyoming,
And drew a bull no man could ride.
He promised her he'd turn out,
Well it turned out that he lied.
And all the dreams that they'd been
livin'
In the California sand,
Dyin' right there beside him in Cheyenne.
They she just went crazy,
Screamin' out his name.
She ran out into the ocean,
And to this day they claim.
That you can go down by the water,
And see her footprints in the sand.
'Cause every night she walks
The beaches of Cheyenne.
They never found her body,
Just her diary by her bed.
It told about the fight they had,
And the words that she had said.
When he told her he was ridin'
She said then I don't give a damn.
If you never come back from Cheyenne.
Nobody can explain it.
Some say she's still alive.
They even claim they've seen her,
On the shoreline late at night.
If you go down by the water,
You'll see her footprints in the sand.
'Cause every night she walks
The beaches of Cheyenne.
'Cause every night she walks
The beaches of Cheyenne." |
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Susan Jenks
was born in 1908, a rancher's daughter in Northern California, and the
oldest of five children. Her mother was a half Creek Indian, and
in order to deal with her grandmother, Susan... and all her
siblings... had to learn to speak Creek. Not the easiest tasks,
but in the end, it was worth it. Aside from this, and being a
bit of a tomboy, the only interesting thing about her childhood was
growing up with another ranch family the next lot over... a bit of a
ways, but the walk was often worth it, for the chance at close
companionship. Susan's family was all boys except for her and
her mother... while this other family, the Timbre family, was all
girls except for the father... and the oldest child, a boy named
Samuel. They grew up together, Susan and Sam... because she was
a tomboy, they actually got along very well, and used to go ride
horses constantly together. But as they got older, things
started to change. Susan began to develop, and Sam began to
notice it. They actually had nothing to do with each other for
four years, until they were both 18 and about to graduate... when they
admitted they'd fallen in love with each other. Within three
months, they were married. They
stayed with Susan's family for a while, until they retired, and moved
in with one of Susan's younger brother's family. This left just
the married couple, and a ranch full of Hispanic ranch hands, to take
care of the place. And for a few years, this worked out... Susan
pretty much running the place, while her husband did the rodeo circuit
as a bullrider. A pretty good one, at that. But at the age
of 21, Susan got tired of having to have learned Spanish... yet
another language... to speak to the ranch hands, and being alone in
that house all the time. After the rodeo season, she made an
ultimatum to her husband: settle down, stop with the circuit, and give
me a child. He loved her, and wanted children himself, so he was
willing to give it a try. And was relatively quick with it...
because within a year of that, Susan gave birth to a beautiful baby
girl. Rachel. And for four years after, they were the
perfect ranch family.
But such things were not to last.
After those four years, Sam couldn't
help it... he signed up for a rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The
MOMENT Susan found out, she lost it on him, screaming at him, calling
him names, and having probably the worst fight of their entire
marriage. He left, and she screamed after him that she hoped he
never came home. That night was probably the loneliest night of
her life. And all that week, she moped around, barely able to
even take care of her own daughter... wondering when he was going to
come back.
The sixth night after he left... she
got the call.
Her husband had been killed when he was thrown off a bull. 1934
did not have the best medical technology yet, and so even such a head
injury as he'd gotten was enough to kill him. And the moment she
heard, Susan went insane. Throwing things, screaming, and
finally running. She ran... and ran... and ran across their
entire property until, out of breath, she stumbled onto the beach...
and fell into the water. For a minute she laid there, trying to
get the courage to do it, but was unable to. She could not kill
herself. She had a child, and that little girl deserved a chance
at a life with at least one parent, since the other was now gone.
Unfortunately for Susan, she was not alone on that beach. |
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A seafaring Gangrel with a small boat of his own had put down only a
mile up the beach, and had come ashore looking for fresh blood.
He found her, and seeing her in that state, felt pity, and gave her
the pleasure of his kiss. But his need for blood was great, and
by the time he calmed himself down, she lay there, drained, and dead.
Panicking... and not wanting to kill someone with no easy way to get
rid of the body as much as anything else... he noticed that she was
the tough type, not a woman who seemed unable to take care of herself,
and did the only thing he could think to do. Embraced her.
Then, in typical Gangrel fashion, gave her more of his own blood,
buried her in the earth just beyond the beach, and left her alone.
This experience would later haunt her, and keep her always afraid of
large bodies of water. When she
awoke next, Susan quickly panicked, but actually figured things out
rather quickly. She knew she'd been bitten. She could
still taste the blood on her mouth. And with the developing
fangs growing in her mouth, and her body ejecting all of its former
fluids, she somehow got past her fear and grasped the situation.
And then, she panicked... realizing she had left her daughter alone.
Going to find her, she found that there was a large van which had come
to collect her things, and her parents were apparently there, to take
in her daughter. Thankfully the cow came across her before a
human did, because in her state of thirst, she finished it off
completely. She would later find she had been buried not for one
night, but for nearly a week, and the search teams had already given
up on her.
For five years, the new Gangrel
wandered the beaches around Cheyenne, California, constantly wishing
that this life would end, or that she would awaken from this
nightmare. She found that any child she tried to drink of only
reminded her of her daughter, but otherwise learned to feed well, and
quickly... she had, after all, no other choice. She also
discovered that when she slept, she REALLY slept... and eventually
figured out that this was a defense mechanism; she had to deal with
her situation every night, but when she slept, her subconscious
refused to deal with it, and would NOT allow her to be woken up...
giving her mind a chance to rest, and heal just a bit. But after
five years, she realized that this was not going to happen, and
finally set off on her own, deciding to just start walking and stop
when she hit the Atlantic. And so she did, and walked over the
next sixty years to do so... yes, she took her time.
Susan had many adventures between here
and there, including, but not limited to, frenzying and gaining her
first beast trait... pointed ears... running into a few other Gangrel,
earning herself a bit of prestige by fighting one in combat and
winning, learning Celerity from another, and even discovering the
existence of the Lupines... by having a friend and clanmate killed by
one while her and a few others could do nothing but watch, and then
run for their own Unlives. She also came across a newly-formed
group... at least, from what she understood... of Sabbat Gangrel who
called themselves "City" Gangrel. Her dealings with them were
amongst the worst of any other, outside the Lupine incident, and she
would forever be unable to deal civilly with them.
Finally, after all those years, she
stood on the coast of the Atlantic, and looked out over it...
terrified of getting too close, but still realizing that the only
thing that had kept her going all those years was finally completed.
With that, she turned back, and began to wander again, finally finding
herself in the city of Roshmere, North Carolina.
Note: Susan is very impatient on the
short term. While it is true that she can wait 60 years to get
to the Atlantic coast, that is because it is a long-term goal.
Anything even more REMOTELY short-term, and her patients is almost
square-rooted. Word games, enigmas, people who don't get to the
point... waiting in line for something that should only take a few
minutes... traffic jams when there's no sign of any CAUSE for
traffic... these things drive her to distraction.
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