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The lake was calm. Unusually calm for a March twilight, for any other early spring night would have powerful winds coercing the water into high squalls which shake the cog with a regular dip and rise, a night that the strange northerners, with their scarlet-painted faces and savage ways would relish to descend on an unsuspecting trade cog in the middle of Lake Superior, under the cover of the wind and waves to slaughter the unsuspecting crew, loot the ship, and finally bring it back to their foggy northern shores to burn in an inexplicable pagan ritual.
It was not that night, for the calm and quiet night was a very special time. The subtleness of the night was so extreme, that not even Lewis Bradford Jackson could feel the wind or waves.
"A lake indeed! I've seen many a sea smaller than this," Lewis thought as he looked into the water. Pulling a pebble out of his pocket, he idly threw it into the lake. The ripples slowly spread out, making a circle, and a circle within that circle as it spread out, and another circle within the previous one until they gradually flattened and died down. Staring at this pattern, Lewis began to doze off, thinking of the lake if the ripples continued outwards. He wondered how many circles could fit within a larger circle, and how many circles the lake could hold. Eventually, he began to snore.
"Fort Superior ahead!" the guard on the crow's nest cried. Lewis awoke, startled and suddenly aware of how he foolishly dozed on the side of the ship. He could've fallen off, or a Kanuk sniper on a canoe could've picked him off. He looked up toward the guard who had cried out his wake-up call., shook his head and paced around the boat to keep awake. Lewis pinched himself for being an idiot and falling asleep while on watch duty. He knew what Kanuks could do from experience and grimaced. On the far edge of his vision, to the south, he could spy what appeared to be a flickering bonfire. What passed for a lighthouse out here it seemed, and it must've been the reason he yelled. Thankful that they were within range of a safe harbor, Lewis lay down on the blanket he had spread out earlier on the ship's floor and almost immediately fell asleep.
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