"Hanratty hates detours," the bus driver said. She had pulled my bag to the lip of the hatch.
"Whose Hanratty?"
"The guy who gave you the finger. He has family in Boise and he just wants to get there. You slowed him down. You're not the first. Did he remind you the VistaCruiser isn't a bus, it's an Oldsmobile?"
"Twice."
She laughed. "He says it to everybody. Soon enough people won't know what an Oldsmobile is. Then what?"
"Silence?"
"Maybe, I think he skimped on his meds today."
"Two handfuls isn't enough?"
"Not usually."
She was still repositioning luggage when I apologized for her trouble.
"It's not your fault," she said. "Gallatin wants to make this run, people are gonna use it."
"It has to be a losing proposition."
"They need the Boise Line—there's money in college kids going to State or connecting to Seattle—but they couldn't have it unless they agreed to serve Sage whenever anyone needed to be brought here."
"Like me."
"Like you. And it's only five, maybe six months out of the year when the pass is clear. Sometimes less."
"Well, I appreciate it, and listen, you don't have to stop the full fifteen minutes."
She looked around. "I figured I'd wait for whoever was coming to meet you."
Something in my expression must have tipped her off: she began tugging at the ringlets of the streaked blonde hair that hung down beneath that gray Gallatin Transit cap and looking in every direction but mine. She knew no one was coming.
"It's not a problem," I said.
"Are you sure?"
"Really, you don't have to wait," I repeated. "You're going to ruin those shoes." I pointed to her lime-green espadrilles which, given the current weather, looked more than a bit out of place. By comparison my running shoes were a reasonable and intelligent choice.
"Got twenty more pair. No one's meeting you?"
"Not that I know of. Did you say twenty?"
"Thereabouts. Do you have a place to stay?"
"I thought I'd find a motel room."
She shook her head, a gesture I construed as being less than promising.
"This isn't any of my business, but if you want to go on to West Yellowstone with us, you're welcome to. I can even drop you in Gardiner just outside the park...outside Yellowstone. It's practically on the way and there's plenty of motels there. It's past tourist season. You'll be able to get any room you want, and cheap."
"There are no rooms here?" The phrase lodging available from some website had burrowed into my brain far enough so that I knew I was not simply imagining it.
"There's a resort west of town. I could drop you there."
I said no. West of town wasn't going to help me.
"The only other thing," she said, "is a motel that's open about two days a year."
"Two days? Doesn't that harm its Triple-A rating?"
"I guess" she said, ignoring my attempt at humor. "The woman who owns it only rents one room."
"That's gonna drop her down a few diamonds too."
Not even a smile. Maybe it was my delivery or maybe she had a better understanding of my plight than I did.
"The owner," she said, "gets some sort of tourism tax break by allowing a room to be rented to…you know…tourists."
Despite her attempts to maintain at least a modicum of optimism, my stomach had begun tightening. That famous Horace Greeley directive, "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country" began to ring very hollow very fast. I had already grown up in the East and did not need to grow up again somewhere else. I just wanted to be somewhere else, but also I didn't want the driver to complete her run thinking she'd left me to die.
"You're not abandoning me," I said, "I'll get that room."
Her expression did not change. "The owner is…the owner has had a tough go of it."
"What kind of tough go?"
"Just a lot of setbacks, you know?"
She looked straight at me: the avoidance was not in her eyes but in her answer. I knew setbacks. I didn't require details.
"All the more reason to open up the place, make some money."
"I think she has enough money. It's other things that…but as far as the room goes, I would give it a shot."
She was making a herculean effort to generate enthusiasm, and I was gratified that she thought enough of me to string me along.
"I will definitely try," I said, beaming like a drunk at a topless bar.
"Just explain your situation to her."
"I definitely will."
"Definitely," she repeated, then after a short pause added, "are you one of those people who use definitely when you mean probably not?"
"Definitely," I said, because she was definitely right. "But this time I have no choice unless I want to sleep here." The leak in the kiosk had grown into a steady pattering.
"Or...get back on the bus," she said. "You can maybe hitch a ride back here tomorrow, if you still need to. Daylight's easier. People will be around."
"I think I need to stay here now," I said. "I'll…" the next definitely was poised and ready to roll off my tongue. "I'll figure something out. That motel, what's it called?"
"It's not called anything. It's the motel."
"It doesn't have a name?"
"No. No diamonds either."
This time she smiled, and her eyes, a pretty silver blue, reflected some of the scant ambient light. She was actually attractive. I know how condescending that sounds, but I guess there are certain occupations with which one does not associate attractive women—bus driver being fairly well up on the list. Of course in second grade I had a crush on a school-bus driver, a tall woman with an almost obscene amount of champagne blond hair corralled into large curls that blew around like a wheat field in a storm whenever she slid her window open and drove fast. I called her "Blondie," a tribute to my profound imaginative skills. In the seat right behind her, every day without fail, sat her daughter, a well-behaved and sweet kid with similarly blond, ribbon-festooned pigtails, who always had with her a ratty, one-eyed, dark brown teddy bear. The child seldom uttered a sound, just sat submissively strapped into some car seat, even though the little girl must have been—in her own pre-school way—bored out of her ever-loving mind. I was interested only in the mother, but in retrospect, the silent child and I made a better pair—we probably had more in common. I also owned a one-eyed teddy bear: the two of them could have shared their tales of loss.
"Last chance," the driver said, "I won't charge you extra if you get back on."
"I don't want to be the first long-haul bus lynching," I said, "and I will be when these people figure out I changed my mind."
"I tried," she said, then pointed to the nameplate on her left breast. "Brenda LaCroix—this is basically my run." From an inside pocket she produced a business card.
"We're going to be in West Yellowstone about three and a half hours from now, some place called the