Last Bus To Wisdom: A Novel

Donal describes trying to convince his grandmother to let him stay on the ranch and work during the summer. He packs a minimum of clothes and a cherished pair of moccasins that he shares with his grandmother in an old, rattan suitcase. Donal takes his autograph book, in which he is attempting to acquire more signatures and inscriptions than anyone in the world, thereby earning his way into Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Gram must go to the Columbus Hospital in Great Falls, a charity institution, for some type of “female trouble” surgery that Donal does not understand. When he enters the ranch house to ask Wendell Williamson to let him stay and work through the summer, he sees the obsidian arrowhead he found and was forced to turn over to Wendell in a display case. When Wendell refuses his request, Donal takes the arrowhead and puts it in his pocket. A visiting veterinarian gives him a ride to the little town of Gros Ventre to catch the first bus.

Donal finds the Greyhound to be much larger than the bus he first rode. He remembers Gram telling him, “The dog bus gets all kinds, so you just have to plow right in there and stake out a place for yourself” (27). The driver reminds him to get his S&H Green Stamps, awarded to him because of the cost of his ticket to Wisconsin.

As he leaves the only area of Montana that he has ever known, Donal thinks of his grandmother and the nuns who will take care of her. He also wonders about Kitty and Dutch Brinker, the great aunt and uncle who will be taking care of him.

He thinks about the inscriptions in his autograph book. It occurs to Donal that the passengers are a captive audience, a good place for him to get more signatures. He approaches three soldiers who tell him that they are on their way first to Fort Lewis, near Seattle, then to Korea. Donal tells them of his father going ashore on Omaha Beach in World War II. After getting their signatures, he sits beside a woman named Leticia who smokes and wears glasses. He discovers that she is a waitress who acts as she does to minimize the number of men who make passes at her. Donal discovers that Leticia worked with Gram at the time his parents died. She tells him that her boyfriend, Harv, is currently in jail, but when he gets out, will find her at her new workplace in Glasgow. Leticia kisses Donal on the mouth, saying, “First of many smackaroos in your career” (48).

The bus stops in Harve, Montana. Donal takes the opportunity to buy three Mounds candy bars. When he gets back on the bus, he discovers many more passengers. Many of them are Indigenous Americans from the Fort Belknap Reservation. Donal grows excited at the possibility of having these individuals sign his memory book, but is disappointed when the Indigenous man seated next to him falls asleep and takes up so much room that Donal cannot get past to seek autographs. He goes to sleep himself, and when he wakes, realizes he is in Glasgow, having slept through much of the Montana countryside.

As passengers enter and leave the bus, he sees a diminutive sheriff get on with a prisoner nearly twice his size. When they sit near Donal, he overhears their conversation, which suggests that the prisoner, Harv, has escaped from jail and the sheriff intends to take him back. The prisoner mentions the name of his girlfriend, Letty. Donal bursts out that he knows her, startling both the sheriff and prisoner.

Donal realizes that his father, Bud Cameron, had worked on the Fort Peck dam in this area around them. Donal was born in Fort Peck, where his mother, Peg, met his father before he left for Europe as a soldier. Badly injured on Omaha Beach, he had to relearn how to walk when he returned to the US.

The sheriff begins to suspect that Donal, traveling by himself, is actually a runaway. Donal struggles to convince the sheriff of his real reason for traveling. Donal gets both the sheriff and the prisoner to sign his memory book.

The bus continues east through small North Dakota towns. When he gets off to eat lunch, Donal attracts the attention of a stranger on the bus who watches him carefully. The stranger sits beside him and strikes up a conversation. Something about the man reminds him of Wendell. As Donal finishes a make-believe story about winning a contest with his moccasins as the grand prize, the man responds, “Look at you, just getting started in life and you’ve got it knocked” (73). Hearing these words from this man alarms Donal. He notes that this expression indicates good things are about to happen, though it sounded very strange coming from this individual. When given the opportunity to sign the autograph book, the man refuses.

The man gets off the bus at the small town of Lake Itasca. As Donal looks out the window, he realizes the man is stealing his suitcase from the bus storage. It contains his $30, moccasins, and arrowhead. When he calls for help, the bus driver stops the man and rescues the suitcase. The rider turns out to be a man recently released from the penitentiary.

The next leg of the journey sees the Greyhound pull into Minneapolis, the largest city Donal has ever seen. With an hour before the bus will depart, he has a leisurely lunch and looks at magazines when he realizes he only has one minute to get back on the Greyhound. It pulls away as he runs to the loading dock. A teamster driving a newspaper van sees Donal’s distress and has him jump into the van. They follow the bus at high speed through Minneapolis to Saint Paul. The van cuts off the bus so that Donal can get back on board.

Back on the bus, Donal sits by an older couple, clearly dismayed by what happened. At first, Donal believes they are upset with him before they explain that they are upset with the bus driver for leaving him. They introduce themselves as the Schneiders and say one of their sons is a doctor in Yellowstone National Park. They are returning from visiting him. Both of them sign the memory book before they get off in Wisconsin.

As the Greyhound arrives in Milwaukee, Donal realizes it is Sunday, the day of Gram’s surgery. He worries about how she is doing.

In the bus stop restroom, he sees a prophylactic machine. He realizes upon inspection that a condom can protect his arrowhead, which is so sharp that it would cut through his pocket. Donal purchases three condoms to sheath his arrowhead.

Back on the bus, Donal feels dismayed to see a large group of boys his age, many of them with red hair, on the bus. They are bound for Camp Winnebago to spend the summer. Three boys sitting near him express intrigue when they hear he is from a Montana ranch. He tells them about his memory book and asks them to sign it. The boys say they are going to keep it and will only give it back at the end of the summer. Fearing they are telling the truth, Donal gets into a fistfight with them. For Donal, the result is a torn shirt and chipped front tooth.

When the bus arrives in Manitowoc, Donal realizes he has lost his aunt’s contact information. Standing before a payphone, which he has never used, and wondering how his relatives will find him among a sea of redheaded boys, he hears his Aunt Kate and Uncle Herman greet him. He immediately believes that his aunt is actually Kate Smith, the singer.