Prologue

There were three of them, As were we. We could see their faces, grim and sullen, in the light of their campfire. They bore heavy beards, at least one of which glowed a fiery orange. Here, on a minuscule sliver of land on an empty stretch of Interstate 2 along the Lake Michigan shoreline, they configured themselves in a loose circle of calcified bones and stiffened muscles made so by the passage of time and intemperate conditions. They could have been ghosts of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a freighter which mysteriously sunk 16 years prior in Whitefish Bay. They were gaunt and still, as if they expected her to be moored just on the other side of this tiny copse of firs and birch trees, and could not understand why they had not been as yet called back to duty.

Or lumbermen they were, for a chainsaw rested confidently on the ground near the fire. They would have trekked from nearby Gibbs City, MI, uninhabited since the 1940's. I felt like we had stumbled onto a time limned with the past.

It looked habitable enough from the road. Of course, a general rule to remember when traveling out of the bounds of civilization is this: if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for somebody else.

We had travelled uncounted hours along the Upper Peninsula coastline. To our right lay an immense and imposing forest, a promise of utter darkness and treachery that would not be found in more civilized lands. There is a foreboding sense of history that lies in old woods like these. Standing silent in their midst, one can almost hear them speak, almost hear them protesting still against the initial intrusions of miners and road builders. It's an amazing sensation, really. Frightening, perhaps, but only as a castle's moat and spires - a projection of titanic strength and longevity. How different, swimming through an ancient forest, to taste its permanence in the air, unlike aging people who grow smaller and less substantial as they approach their end.

To our left, like a swirling gemstone that invites you into its depths, was Lake Michigan. The winds were stronger here, and the waves more fierce, as we were fairly near the Straits of Mackinac. In between the moon and the thick canopy of stars above, we caught the light reflecting in flashes, like fireflies, as the waves crested and broke upon the shore. We were lost in the awesome beauty of it all. I don't even remember what we might have been talking about, though I doubt it was anything at all. I imagined, that were I in a plane along the same route, the morning light would reveal a colossal clash of water versus land. The great trees, like sturdy bolts, seemed to tack the whole of the ground to the Earth, so that the mighty waters could not displace it so easily as thought.

So it was that we discovered the aforementioned peninsula jutting out into the expanse. The dirt road made our decision final. We turned and drove in, hoping to gain rest before our return trip. We entered the copse and only then noticed the flickering light of a campfire.