“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.