Bite the Bullet - Saints Row

3: Young Gun

The Lake sprawled beneath the highway, sparkling in the hot sun while billboards cluttered the big blue skyline, boasting local businesses with names I had to see to believe, sporadic high rises in various states of disrepair zooming by the K-rails. A fifteen-minute drive took us clear across the island, all of the outsourced renovations and roadwork breaking off just shy of the dollar-store Mackinac.

We wound up in the outskirts of the Encanto district, turning a corner into nowhere, the empty fields swallowing the last graffitied gas station. I flicked my cigarette butt out the window, repositioning anticipatingly in my seat.

"...Where the hell are we?" The new guy's pointer finger suddenly dropped into view, fixed on a trailer park hugging the forested, rocky cliffs. Thanks. "...Yeah, OK. What about it?"

Scoffing, he pointed again. I traced his line of sight to a metal gate gobbled by the weeds, blocking off a series of overgrown trails. He drove us past the crooked, swiss cheese stop sign onto the gravel path, throwing me around in my seat some more for good measure. After about ⅛ of a mile, we slowed to a bumpy halt and he cranked the E-brake, opening his door and wading through tall, dry grass and goldenrod. I leaned curiously out of my window, slapping at the gnats while he unhooked the chain and walked the steel tube gate open. A trail barely a car's width waited behind it, two tire tread divots gutting the clay. It didn't appear to be private property, but it was definitely remote.

"...Ya' ain't plannin' on burying me up there, are ya'?" He masked a smirk and slammed his door, obviously finding my question funny . "Oh, goodie." I quipped, rocking my knee. "Yeah. That's great man. Really."

I hung on while he took us up those inclined trails, looping around the mountainside and through the trees. We passed piles of abandoned scrap and trash littering the half-sunken cliffs, while Stilwater's shadow grew further and further away. The altitude was starting to make me nervous once I realized that was a radio tower we passed, and the only thing protecting us from a very long drop was Nacho's navigation and some flimsy, rusted guardrail. My nosiness got the better of me, though, and I stole a peek down through the dense pines and rippling fields. A long band of road with bleachers on either side ran right up to the tide, and I recognized it as the Old Highway, cut off sharply by the water's jaws, drowned sometime back in the early '90s. What was left of it made for an excellent racetrack.

"...So, that's where you're luggin' this thing." I remarked, earning a placid grin. We bounced along, chugging around those bends with branches and bushes whacking the windshield until they gave way, parting to reveal a peaceful, grassy clearing lined in wildflowers and caterpillar nets. I slouched in my seat, practically basting while I listened to the hemi click and cool, subtle exhaust fumes creeping into the cab. The buzz of dinin' needles and yellowjackets filled the woods, water trickling somewhere nearby, rogue pollen and dandelion seeds an asthmatic nightmare. Save for a portable toilet and a trash bin chained to a tetanus factory of a picnic table, these sticks were about as secluded as it got.

The new guy got out of the car and I followed suit, shielding my eyes from the patchy sunshine. I spotted a wooden sign propped at the mountain's base, reading in streaky, stenciled paint:

"MOUNT CLAFLIN STATE PARK."

"Huh." I puffed, pinching my damp shirt and fanning it away from my chest. I could honestly say that I hadn't seen trees like that since PADI training up on Erie. "...Surprised a place like this exists in Stilwater. Even more surprised it ain't covered in garbage and crackheads." I turned to see what he was doing, adding: "How'd ya' know about it? Ya' used to live around here, or somethin'?"

He shrugged, just standing there and rubbing his sore knuckles.

"Yeah..." I lagged, not sure what I expected. "I really oughta' quit askin' questions that ain't a 'yes' or 'no' answer."