Last Bus To Wisdom: A Novel

Content Warning: The source text contains anti-fat bias as well as outdated and insensitive terminology to refer to Indigenous Americans, people without permanent homes, and people with disabilities. The text also features the theft of Indigenous artifacts by non-Indigenous people.

Donal describes the ranch where he lives as being “so far from anywhere that you had to take a bus to catch the bus” (1). His first ride is on the Rocky Mountain Stage Line that takes him from his Double W Ranch cook shack to Great Falls, Montana, and its Greyhound bus station. He sits in the back beside a gray-haired woman. He tells her he is going to Pleasantville, New York, where his father works for Reader’s Digest. In actuality, his parents died in an auto accident, and he is going to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to stay with his Great Aunt Kate, whom he has never met, while Gram, his grandmother, recuperates from surgery. He introduces himself as Donal, and adds Red Chief, the nickname his father gave him because of his red hair and freckles.

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.