Last Bus to Wisdom

by Ivan Doig

  “Indian booties?” That had him eyeing me as if to make sure I was on the level. “How are those any big deal?”

  “They were made a long time ago for the best Blackfoot fancy-dancer there ever was, that’s how.” I didn’t need to fumble for a name. “Red Chief, he was called.” My enthusiasm built with every detail that flashed to mind. “See, when there was this big powwow about to happen with Indians coming from everywhere, the tribe gathered all its beads on a blanket, and the best moccasin maker chose the prettiest ones and spent day and night sewing the design.” Expert of a kind that I was from donning the soft leather slippers for so many middle-of-the-night calls of nature, I lovingly described their blue and white prancing figures that seemed to lighten a person’s step, like wearing kid gloves on the feet.

  “They’re real beauties,” I assured my blinking listener, “and when the guy, Red Chief I mean, put them on for the fancy-dancing contest against all the other tribes, he won everything. And so, after that the moccasins were called ‘big medicine’—that’s Indian for ‘magic,’ see—and nobody else in the tribe could even touch them but that one fancy-dancer.

  “When he got old and died, though”—my tone hushed just enough to draw my audience of one in closer—“the tribe was going to sell them to a museum back east, but the dude ranch owner heard about it and traded a bunch of horses to the Blackfeet for them.” For all I knew, this part approached the truth. Admittedly in very roundabout fashion, but the fact was that my grandmother, the sharp-trading fry cook there in the reservation town of Browning, had bargained someone out of the impressive moccasins somehow.

  I had to really reach for the next portion, but I got there. “When the dude rancher tried them on, they had shrunk up real bad and didn’t fit him, so he made them the grand prize for the roping contest. They’re just right for me,” I finished modestly.

  My seatmate’s jaw kept dropping until I reached the end, then as if coming to, he studied my feet. “I’m surprised you don’t have them on, show them off some.”

  “Uh-uh, they’re way too valuable,” I fielded that, “I have to keep them tucked away in my suitcase. I’ll only wear them at home, around the house.”

  “A fortune on your tootsies, huh? I tell you, some guys have all the luck.”

  Good-natured about it, though, he drew back as if to make room for his admiration of me, topping it off with “Look at you, just getting started in life and you’ve got it knocked,” and I went still as death.

  • • •

  HOW CAN A WORD, a saying, do that? Make your skin prickle, as memory comes to the surface?

  Innocent as it sounded, the utterance from this complete stranger echoed in me until my ears rang. Gram was more used to this sort of thing, the sound of someone speaking from past the grave. Past a white cross on the side of Highway 89, in this instance. How many times had I heard it, waiting with my mother in a kitchen table card game of pitch or a round of dominoes or some such while my father scouted for work, for the next construction camp that needed a hot-shot catskinner, and in he would come at last, smiling like the spring sun as he reported, “They’re hiring at Tiber Dam,” or the Greenfield irrigation project it might be, or the reservoirs capturing creeks out of the Rockies, Rainbow and Pishkun and those. Each time his voice making the words wink that certain way: “We’ve got it knocked.” Wherever it came from—World War Two? the Depression?—for me the expression indeed meant something solid we were about to tap into, wages for my folks after a lean winter and a firmer place to live than wherever we had fetched up when the ground froze hard enough to resist a bulldozer blade. It entered me deeper than mere words generally go, as Gram’s sayings did with her, to the point where I perfectly well knew, even though I wasn’t there, that starting out on that trip to take possession of the bulldozer that would set them—us—up in life for once and for all, Bud Cameron and his wife Peg declared in one voice or the other that they had it knocked. Until they didn’t.

  • • •

  BRISKLY MY TEMPORARY companion prodded me out of the spell, tugging at his suit cuffs as he asked, “Where’s home that you’re gonna parade around in those fancy moccasins?”

  “Chicago.” The rest came to me from somewhere, natural as drawing breath. “My father’s a policeman there.”

  “You don’t say,” he said again, with a couple of blinks as if he had something in his eye. “A harness bull, is he?”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, a cop on the beat?”

  “Huh-uh. Detective. He solves murders.”

  He studied me as if really sizing me up now. “That what you’re going to be? A flatfoot?” He winked to signal we both knew the lingo, didn’t we.

  “Nope. A rodeo announcer. ‘Now coming out of chute four, Rags Rasmussen, saddle bronc champeen of the world, on a steed called Bombs Away,’” I gave him a rapid-fire sample. My parents never missed a Gros Ventre rodeo, and given all the hours I had sat through bareback and saddle bronc riding, the announcer’s microphone spiel was virtually second nature to me.

  “Whew.” My seatmate gave that little shake of his head again as if I were really something. “Whatever it is, you seem to know the ropes.”

  If I knew any, it was that it was time to quit fooling around. He wasn’t as good at making up things as I was, whatever that was about. Maybe he was embarrassed about being a headbolt heater salesman and not able to afford to dress better than he did. In any case, I didn’t have time for bulloney from him, I needed to get going with the autograph book. In several seats not far behind us was a group of women all wearing hats with various floral designs, and from what I was able to overhear of their chatter they were a garden club who called themselves the Gardenias, and were out for fun, which seemed to consist of staying at a lakeside lodge with a flower garden. I didn’t want to miss out on the bunch of them, so I produced the album to deal with my seatmate first and then scoot down the aisle to those hats bursting with blossoms.

  He registered surprise at seeing the book open to an inviting page, and the Kwik-Klik seemed to throw him, too. “Tell you what, maybe later.” He wiggled his hand as if it needed warming up.

  “Okay, then. Let me past, please.”

  “Hey, don’t rush off,” he protested, showing no sign of moving. “How often do I get to visit with a jackpot roper?” he said with a palsy-walsy smile.

  “Yeah, but—” I explained what a golden chance the bus was for building up my collection and the only way to do it was, well, to get out there in the aisle and do it. I made ready to squeeze by him, but he still hadn’t budged and he was as much of a blockade to try to climb over as the plump Indian.

  I don’t know what would have happened if the bus hadn’t started slowing way down, for a reason that caught me by surprise. And one that made him change his mind in an instant about keeping me for company.

  “What do you know, here’s my stop.” He craned to look ahead through the windshield. “Lost track of the time.”

  I dropped back in my seat, stretching my neck to see, too. We were pulling in to what looked like an old mercantile store with a gas pump out front and a faded sign under the Mobil flying red horse, LAKE ITASCA GARAGE—FUEL, FOOD, AND FISH BAIT. Half the building appeared to be the post office and a little grocery shop. The rest of the crossroads settlement was three white-painted churches, a bar calling itself a tavern, a small cafe, and a scattering of houses. It looked to me like a neatened-up Palookaville. And the driver was announcing this was only a drop stop, as soon as the passengers getting off had their luggage we’d be on our way.

  Although we were nearest the door, my companion in conversation was super polite in waiting for the garden club to file off first, before winking me a good-bye along with “Say hi to Chi,” which it took me a moment to translate as Chicago, and then launching himself to the bus door as if he had to get busy.

  In his wake, I gazed
out the window at the sparse buildings, idly thinking Minnesotans must be a whole lot more foresighted than Montanans, who waited to rush out and buy headbolt heaters when the first real snow came, around Thanksgiving. I felt sorry for the man in the suit, disappointing company though he’d turned into there toward the end, for having to slog around all summer dealing with places like this rundown garage, which looked all but dead. And besides the size of suitcase that would take, he must have to lug round a—what was it called?—sample case, although I hadn’t noticed any when my own suitcase was put back in the belly of the bus at Bemidji.

  All at once the awful fact hit me. I grabbed my shirt pocket to make sure. When I changed out of the pearl-button shirt, I hadn’t thought to unpin the folded ten-dollar bills in back of its pocket and secure them in the fresh shirt I was wearing. Except for loose change in my pants to use for meals, all my money now resided in my suitcase. Gram would have skinned me alive if she knew I’d let myself get separated from my stash.

  Feeling like a complete moron, I charged out the door of the bus.

  The Gardenias were in a clump while the driver sorted out their bags as they pointed in the compartment. I had to skirt around them to where I knew mine was, and was startled to see the broad back of a familiar suit. The man had ducked behind the driver and was grabbing for the only wicker piece of luggage.

  “He’s after my suitcase!” I shrieked. A cry that carried with it moccasins, arrowhead, money, clothing, my entire trip, everything I foolishly was about to lose.

  At my hollering like that, the flowery hats scattered far and wide, but the driver bravely spun right around and clamped the sneak’s wrist before he could bolt. Wresting my suitcase from the thief, he roughly backed him against the side of the bus.

  “Yardbird on the wing, are you,” the driver sized him up with distaste while pinning him there below the racing silver greyhound. “Suit from the warden and all. How’d you like the accommodations in the pen?”

  The penitentiary! Really? I goggled at the ex-convict, or maybe not-so-ex. Trying to display some shred of dignity, he maintained in a hurt voice, “Paid my debt to society. I’m a free man.”

  “Swell,” the driver retorted, “so you go right back to swiping things like a kid’s suitcase.”

  “Just a misunderstanding, is all,” the captured culprit whined. “I thought the youngster was getting off here, and I was going to help him with his luggage.”

  “Sure you were.” The driver turned his head toward me as the Gardenia group clucked in the background. “What do you say, champ, you want to press charges? Attempted robbery?”

  How I wished for that half-pint sheriff in the big hat right then. This Lake Itasca place, not much more than a wide spot in the road, didn’t look like it had any such. I could tell that the driver was antsy about the delay it would take to deal with the criminal, and come right down to it, I did not want my trip, complicated enough as it was, to be hung up that way, either.

  “Naw, let him go,” I said, sick of it all. When the driver turned the thieving so-and-so loose—my swearing vocabulary wasn’t up to the description he deserved—he swaggered off in the direction of the cafe, adjusting his suit, careful not to look back. The garden club ladies fussed over me, but I only looked at the bus driver with a long sigh. “Can I get something out of my suitcase again?”

  6.

  “PAINT IT RED” was my father’s backhand way of saying “Forget it,” and I did my best to follow that advice after the close call with the jailbird. But it was the sort of thing you can’t blot out in your mind by saying so. Even after I hurriedly fixed the money matter by retrieving the stash from the shirt in the suitcase and pinning it under the pocket of the one I was wearing, there was no covering over the fact that I had nearly lost just about everything I owned—the precious autograph book excepted, thank goodness—by my bragging. That’ll teach you, Red Chief, I mentally kicked myself, and for the rest of that morning on the ride down to Minneapolis I kept to my seat and watched the other passengers out of the corner of my eye lest I be invaded by some other wrongdoer.

  Luckily that did not happen, the bus inhabitants minding their manners and leaving me alone—maybe I was painted red to them—and around noon my attention was taken up by the way the Greyhound little by little was navigating streets where the buildings grew taller and taller. We were now in the big half of the Twin Cities, according to the driver’s good-natured announcement, and whatever the other place was like, everything about Minneapolis was more than sizable as I perched on the edge of my seat peering out at it all. The first metropolis—it puffed itself up to that by stealing half the word, didn’t it—of my life.

  Wide as my eyes were at the sights and scenes, it was hard to take it all in. Even the department store windows showing off the latest fashions seemed to dwarf those in, say, Great Falls. Likewise, the sidewalks were filled with throngs that would not have fit on the streets back in Montana. People, people everywhere, as traffic increasingly swarmed around us, the tops of cars turtling along below the bus windows barely faster than the walking multitudes.

  As the Greyhound crept from stoplight to stoplight, I couldn’t help gawking at so many passersby in suits and snappy hats and good dresses on an ordinary day, each face another world of mystery to me. Where were they going, what drew them out dressed to the gills like promenaders in an Easter parade? Where did they live, in the concrete buildings that seemed to go halfway to the sky or in pleasant homes hidden away somewhere? I wished this was Wisconsin so I could start to have answers to such things, all the while knowing I was many miles yet from any kind of enlightenment.

  When we at last pulled in to the block-long driveway of the terminal, with numerous buses parked neatly side by side as if the silver dogs were lined up to start a race, the driver called out that routine I knew by heart now, lunch stop, conveniences, and so on. Minneapolis, however, was his changeover spot, so he got off ahead of the rest of us, but the relief driver was not there yet, and when I reached the bottom of the steps, the departing driver gave me a little salute and said with a serious smile, “Take care of yourself, son.”

  Son. My chest was out, I’m sure, as I charged through the double doors of the bus station. I knew the driver had only said it because we were inadvertent buddies after dealing with the larcenous man in the suit, but no one had called me that for the past two years.

  In high spirits, I gazed around the teeming depot to scout matters out. The slick-looking blue building, when we’d pulled up to it, took up most of the block, with a rounded entrance on the corner where three fleet greyhounds the same as on the bus seemed to be in an everlasting chase after one another around the top of the building. But more impressive to me was an actual restaurant, just like you’d find on a street, tucked inside the majestic terminal, with a full menu posted. It hooked me at first sight; all due apology to Gram and her decree of a sandwich for lunch, my stomach was only interested in a real meal. Hadn’t I been through a lot since Bemidji, coping with the danger of being robbed blind? That kind of narrow escape was bound to cause an appetite, right? Besides, I still was carrying loose change wanting to be spent.

  Anyway, feeling highly swayve and debonure out on my own in grown-up territory, I found a table where I could see the big clock over the ticket counter—most of an hour yet until the bus was to leave, but I wasn’t taking any chances—and was served Swiss steak by a pleasant waitress, although I didn’t know what she was called because it wasn’t written on her breast. To me in my grand mood, only one name in pink stitching deserved such prominence anyway.

  • • •

  LETICIA. Moonily I daydreamed again, imagining that when I was done with that summer of living out of a wicker suitcase, Gram would meet me at the Greyhound station in Great Falls, healed up and feisty as ever, telling me, guess what, she had the old job as fry cook at the top spot in Gros Ventre. And guess what again, Letty was waitress o
n the same shift. Havre didn’t work out, I was not surprised to hear. And sure enough, there Letty was from then on, red-lipsticked and sassy as she dealt out the meals Gram made appear in the kitchen’s ready window, sneaking a cigarette whenever the counter wasn’t busy, and boldly taking up where she left off with Harv the trucker. With his jailbreaking past and mean sheriff brother behind him, and regular as the days of the week in courting Letty—who wouldn’t be, linked up with the world’s best kisser?—he was my great companion as well. To top off this dreamlike turn of life, I took all my meals there at the cafe, with Gram dishing up chicken-fried steak whenever I wished and Letty giving me a wink and asking, “Getting enough to eat, sonny boy?”

  • • •

  “I SAID, are you getting enough to eat, sonny boy?”

  I came to with a start, the Minneapolis waitress puncturing that vision as she started to clear away my empty plate. “Fine, yeah, I’m full as can be,” I mumbled my manners as real life set in again, the public-address system announcing departures and arrivals the same as ever.

  Rousing myself with still plenty of time until I needed to be back at the bus, I left a dime tip as I had seen the person at the next table do, and roamed out into the busy waiting area, where I was naturally drawn to the news and candy stand.

  The stand was piled on all sides with newspapers and magazines, a dozen times more than the Gros Ventre drugstore had to offer, and after buying a Mounds that I justified as dessert I circled around, investigating who was famous just then. On cover after cover was someone smiling big, although not President Truman, who seemed to be having trouble with a Wisconsin senator named McCarthy, according to Time and Newsweek. Of the others pictured, though, biggest of all in every way was the well-known face of the impressively hefty singer Kate Smith on the oversize cover of Life, which identified her as AMERICA’S FAVORITE SONGSTRESS—BLESSED WITH A VOICE LIKE NO OTHER. If a voice like no other meant singing “God Bless America” over and over until it stuck in the head of everyone in the country, she sure had that, all right. Giving her the admiring look of someone who, as Gram would have said, couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, I passed on to a whole section of the newsstand populated by movie stars—Elizabeth Taylor again, and Ava Gardner and Gary Cooper and Robert Taylor and a good many I had never heard of, but they were clearly famous. How I envied every gleaming one of them.