All Clyde could do for his brother and sister-inlaw was wash Blanche’s eyes out with water from a creek and pour hydrogen peroxide into the hole in Buck’s skull. The sheer ferocity of the Barrows’ firepower had left the officers at the Red Crown Tavern in a sort of shock following the gunfight, so that Clyde was able to drive away. This seemed to happen in all of the Barrows’ shootouts. There would be a violent encounter, but no followup or chase by police until it was too late. In this case, and several others, the Barrows might have been caught easily if the police had been able to mount an effective pursuit. Not far from the Red Crown, Clyde pulled onto a side road. They had to change a tire and take stock of their injuries. It was here that Clyde first got a good look at his brother’s wound.2
By morning, they were back in Iowa. Late that afternoon, July 20, they had found a place to lie low for a while. Just north of Dexter, Iowa, there had once been a park called Dexfield. It had opened in 1915, and, for a few years, was famous throughout the state. Open every Sunday, it was not unusual for several thousand people to come from as far away as Des Moines. It had a concrete swimming pool, a dance floor, a large amusement park, and even a small zoo. It was all abandoned now, the area around it grown up in underbrush. Other than serving as a local “lover’s lane” for young people, the place was largely unused. Clyde was able to pull off the road and back into a small clearing out of sight. They set up camp and tried to make Buck as comfortable as possible.3
The next morning, Friday the 21st, Clyde began running the errands required to provide for the rest of his group, but first he made a stop for himself. One thing people noticed about Clyde, even as a teenager with almost no money, was that he liked to keep clean and dress well. This day, he drove into Dexter and went into a clothing store. In the back, he found John Love working in the shoe shop. Clyde seemed at ease as he asked for some white shirts and a new pair of shoes. When Love came back with the things, Clyde suddenly seemed nervous, paid his bill, and left in a hurry. John Love’s deputy sheriff badge was just visible inside his shirt pocket.
There was no such distraction at Blohm’s Meat Market. Wilma Blohm just remembers a nice, polite young man ordering five dinners to go—complete with china and silverware—and a block of ice. While this was being prepared, Clyde went across to Pohle’s Pharmacy and bought medical supplies. He returned to town on Saturday and Sunday and did the same thing—five dinners, a block of ice, and a trip to the pharmacy. By now, both the Blohms and the druggist knew something was strange about the young man, but neither said anything.4
The interior of Pohle’s Drug Store as it looked when Clyde Barrow was a customer. The lady on the right is Lilian Pohle, who waited on him.
—Courtesy Robert Weesner
Dexfield Park in its heyday, circa 1920.
—Courtesy Robert Weesner
In July 1933, this building was the E. B. Pohle Drug Store in Dexter, Iowa, where Clyde Barrow bought medical supplies while the gang was hiding out at Dexfield Park. This picture was taken from across the street, from the approximate location of Blohm’s Meat Market, where Wilma Blohm sold Barrow take-out dinners and ice, and loaned him china and silverware, which he returned.
—From the author’s collection
By Sunday the 23rd, Buck was in a bad way. His brain had begun to swell from the trauma, and tissue was coming out of the wound. Blanche was also in constant pain from the glass in her eye. On top of all that, Clyde was getting nervous about their car. They had managed to cover the Platte City bullet holes with mud, but it was only a matter of time before the car was spotted. Just after noon, Clyde and Jones drove north to the town of Perry in search of a replacement.
About 2:00 on Sunday afternoon, members of his family heard Ed Stoner’s Ford V-8 sedan start and drive away from his house on Sixth Street. They assumed that a relative, Bob Stoner, had borrowed it, but when Bob came in the house an hour later, they realized the car had been stolen. By then, it was parked at the Barrows’ campsite at Dexfield.5
That same Sunday afternoon, Henry Nye went for a walk near the old Dexfield property. The Ford parked in the woods didn’t bother him—there had been campers there before—but the bloodstained shirt he found sure did. He called John Love, the deputy sheriff/shoemaker, who told him he had already had a couple of other calls about the folks at the park. Love went over to see for himself and then called his boss, Sheriff Clint Knee.6
Sheriff Knee didn’t take long to make the connection. The shootout in Platte City was too fresh. At least in the law enforcement community, the Barrow gang was on everybody’s mind. While he couldn’t be sure who the people were, Knee drove to Dexter and begin questioning townspeople while, at the same time, calling for reinforcements.
The presence of desperate outlaws just outside of town became the worstkept secret in Dexter, Iowa. A young man who worked at Blohm’s Market finished his day planning to join the crowd out at Dexfield and watch the desperadoes get captured the next morning. Just before closing time, he looked up, and there stood Clyde Barrow. Very un-outlawlike, Clyde was just returning Wilma Blohm’s silverware and china, as he had promised her he would. He set the dishes down, bought some wieners and other things, and exited, leaving a very nervous clerk behind.7
Sheriff Knee’s call for reinforcements yielded a few real lawmen, but the predominant result was a crowd of spectators. A couple of state officers, “Rags” Riley and Bill Arthur, showed up, and Dr. H. W. Keller, a dentist and National Guard officer, brought some Des Moines men, but the majority of the posse that would confront the Barrows would be local citizens. As the night wore on, the crowd grew in size and moved out to Dexfield Park. Word got around, and folks came out to see the show. Some brought their dates, and a number brought some very illegal “adult beverages.” The manhunt was turning into a party.8 Fortunately, the crowd was kept far enough away that they didn’t alert the guests of honor.
In the campsite, there was activity late into the night—loading weapons, repacking ammunition, and running engines—suggesting that the group intended to leave the area. After all, they finally had a new car in good condition. They had been nursing the shot-up Platte City car for almost a week, but the Stoner Ford V-8 from Perry, now with new Texas plates, opened up the possibility of traveling in relative comfort and safety. The Barrow family says that the brothers had promised each other that if one was mortally wounded or killed, the other would take him home to the family in Dallas. The family contends that Buck’s condition had gotten so bad that Clyde decided it was time to go home.9 There might be some truth in this, but, in fact, Buck’s head wound looked worse than it was—for the moment, at least. Buck was conscious and lucid but very weak. He would later succumb to infection because of the wound, but there was very little actual brain damage, even though the wound itself looked awful. Clyde’s intentions, whatever they were, didn’t matter in the end. The Barrows were about to be overcome by events.
As the sun came up on Monday, July 24, the posse that was going to confront whoever was camped out at Dexfield was divided into three squads. Sheriff Knee, the two state men Riley and Arthur, Dr. Keller, and two others would be the “point.” They would move in for the actual arrest. Two other groups, one from Redfield, and the other from Dexter, would guard the exits from the park. The rest of the audience, those who had lasted through the night, were further back, waiting for the show to start. At first light, Sheriff Knee and his men made their move, but if they hoped to catch the outlaws asleep, they were disappointed.10
It was just after 5:00 A.M., and at the campsite everybody was awake. Blanche was getting Buck a glass of water, Bonnie and Clyde were sitting on a seat cushion they had pulled out from the Platte City car, and W. D. was roasting the last of the hot dogs from the night before. It was either Bonnie or Clyde who happened to look up and see the figures moving through the underbrush. In that instant, whatever plans Clyde may have had were changed.
Some members of the posse at Dexfield Park, Monday morning, July 2
4, 1933.
—Courtesy Rick Mattix
Surprise and extreme stress have all kinds of effects on people. Most people—even law enforcement officers—are so seldom put suddenly into true life-or-death situations that it’s almost impossible to prepare for them. This was an area where Clyde Barrow had a natural advantage. When confronted with a sudden threat, some people will run, some will become hysterical, and some will simply freeze. Clyde seemed, from his earliest brushes with danger, to be the kind of person who could continue to think and function in the middle of fear and chaos. Since he also had several opportunities to experience and live through truly frightening gunfights, he was almost always better prepared to deal with the situation than was his opposition. This, along with the awesome firepower he carried, gave him a few seconds’ head start, and a few seconds could mean the difference between life and death.
In an instant Clyde saw it all. He yelled to everyone to run for the car, picked up the nearest BAR, and emptied a magazine over the lawmen’s heads.11 Nobody in his right mind stands up as a military machine gun fires at him, so the six lawmen were immediately on the ground or behind cover. People up to 100 yards away were surprised to find leaves, branches, and entire limbs falling around them as the .30 caliber bullets cut through the trees. “Rags” Riley went down, stunned by a glancing blow to the head. He was the only lawman wounded.12
Clyde got his few seconds, but that was all. These Iowa men were shocked—as lawmen always were—at the firepower, but they didn’t run and they didn’t freeze. Within a few seconds, they were all returning fire. W. D. Jones was hit with buckshot and knocked down twice before he made it to the car—small but painful flesh wounds. Bonnie limped along, helping Buck and Blanche into the back seat as Clyde covered the group as best he could. W. D. couldn’t get the Ford started, so Clyde shoved him over and took his place.13
As soon as the engine caught, Clyde was backing the Stoner car away from the lawmen. He then turned and started out of the park but was met by gunfire from another part of the posse. As he backed away again, he was hit in the shoulder and lost control of the car. It ran over a stump and hung up on the bumper. W. D. made a quick try to pry it loose, but they were stuck fast. Clyde got everybody out and headed back for the other car, but it was no use. The posse shot out all the windows and tires and ruined the engine. The only thing left was to try and hide.
As the Barrows headed for the woods, the posse continued to fire. W. D. was stunned again by a glancing shot, Bonnie took shotgun pellets to the midsection, and Buck was hit again, but they got a few minutes’ relief as they disappeared into the underbrush and out of sight. Sheriff Knee and his men had not given up, but tracking desperate killers through thick brush was a dangerous business, so the pursuit slowed down. Clyde moved everybody as fast as he could, but Buck was on his last legs. The group made it to the top of a rise overlooking the South Racoon River, where Buck finally collapsed. He asked Clyde to take Blanche and run for it— “I’m done for,” he said—but Blanche wasn’t having any of it. She had stood by Buck when he was an escaped convict, when he was in prison, and all through his disastrous reunion with Clyde. This was her third pitched gun battle—although there is no evidence she ever fired a gun—in four months. She was not about to leave him now.14
Clyde told them all to hide as best they could, and he would find a car and come back for them. With that, he took a BAR and a pistol and headed down the hill toward a bridge where the road crossed the river. W. D. took Bonnie and crawled into some bushes while Buck and Blanche hid near an old baseball diamond.15
Off in the direction Clyde had gone, there was a flurry of gunshots, and Bonnie was sure Clyde had been killed, but a few minutes later he returned. He had run into some posse members, lost the BAR, and turned back. Now they were separated from Buck and Blanche and had only Clyde’s .45, which was empty. They were all wounded and in a generally sorry state, but Clyde knew their only chance was to keep moving. The only way to go was across the Racoon River, so down the bank they went, then into the water, blood trailing behind them. They paddled across with Bonnie on W. D.’s back and hid in a corn field.16
It wasn’t yet 6:00 A.M., but Iowa farm families were early risers, so young Marvelle Fellers was already at work around the barn, along with his father, Valley Fellers, and his uncle, Walt, when his dog began to bark and run toward the corn field. The young man followed and saw a small, bloody, wet, and bedraggled man holding a pistol. “Call this dog off, or I’ll kill him,” he said. Marvelle grabbed his dog, and the man called to the other two men to come down where he could watch them. Clyde then whistled and W. D. approached the barn, half carrying Bonnie. Clyde told the men that he didn’t want to hurt anybody, but they had to have a car because “the laws are shooting the devil out of us.” Of the three cars on the farm, only one would run, so Clyde watched as Marvelle backed a 1929 Plymouth out of the garage and the other two men lifted Bonnie inside. As they were about to leave, Clyde ask Valley Fellers, “You ain’t going to shoot us in the back while we’re driving off, are you?” Mr. Fellers replied that he only had one shotgun shell, and it was in the house. With that, what was left of the Barrow gang drove out of sight.17
The South Racoon River viewed from the bridge where Clyde Barrow had a short firefight with officers during his first attempt to find a getaway car after they were chased into the brush by the posse. Clyde retreated back up the hillside and found Bonnie and W. D. Jones, and the three of them came down to the river again and swam across just out of sight around the bend. The old Dexfield Park was on top of the ridge to the right.
—From the author’s collection
Bonnie, Clyde, and W. D. Jones had made it across the river, but Buck and Blanche weren’t going anywhere. As the posse closed in, they hid behind a large log. Buck managed to get his pistol up but was shot again as he tried to shield Blanche.18 At that point, she stood up and begged the lawmen to stop. “You’ve already killed him,” she said.19 A few more tense moments and they were prisoners. Blanche had come through the shootout with hardly a scratch, but with the glass in her eye, she could barely see. Buck, on the other hand, now had three new bullet holes to go with his fiveday-old head wound. He was in and out of consciousness, so the lawmen decided to take them to the nearest medical help available.
Doctors Keith Chapler and Robert Osborn were in the middle of a tonsillectomy in their office in Dexter when they were descended upon by a group of bloody, agitated people, most of whom were heavily armed. After the confusion died down and the situation was explained, the poor tonsillectomy patient was forgotten and the doctors began to examine the two prisoners. Blanche’s main injury was the crushed glass that had been in both eyes for the last five days. She had developed what the doctors called “traumatic conjunctivitis.” Part of the time, she was calm and cooperative, but other times, they found her aggressive and slightly hysterical. During one trip to the restroom, Blanche tried to run out a side entrance but was stopped by the nurse.
Buck’s condition was much more serious. The old head wound was the most obvious problem. Dr. Chapler and Dr. Osborn both examined it and asked Buck about it. He told them that they had just poured hydrogen peroxide into the hole in his forehead and let it run out the one in his temple— three or four times a day. All he had for the pain was aspirin. His skull was badly fractured, and brain tissue was seeping out of the two openings, but the wound was amazingly clean, and Buck said it wasn’t bothering him all that much. What was hurting him at the moment were the three new bullet wounds, two in his hip, and, especially, the one in his back. The doctors found that a .45 slug had entered his back, bounced off a rib, and was lodged in his chest cavity. They could give only first aid, but promised to follow Buck to the hospital and do what they could.
Dexter posse members gathered around the fallen Marvin Ivan “Buck” Barrow. The figure in the white undershirt, kneeling with his back to the camera, is often mistaken for the wounded outlaw, but he is, in fact, a member of
the posse from Dexter named Virgil Musselman. Buck Barrow’s upper body and right leg can be seen on the ground just in front of Musselman.
—Courtesy Robert Weesner
Buck Barrow, head bandaged, just above the corner of the open car door, is helped into a car after being captured at Dexfield Park. He and Blanche were taken to Dexter, Iowa, for first aid medical treatment. Buck was then taken to a hospital in Perry, Iowa, and Blanche remained in custody. July 24, 1933.
—Courtesy Rick Mattix
Getting Buck and Blanche out of Dexter and up to the hospital in Perry was now the problem. Word had gotten out by now that it was the famous Barrow gang in the shootout, and the streets of Dexter had filled up for blocks around the doctor’s office with curious folks who wanted a look at the desperadoes. Also, the gang’s reputation was such that everyone believed there was a real possibility that the escaped members might come back. The lawmen used this fear to disperse the crowd. A policeman was sent out with a bullhorn to announce that they had just received a phone call that Bonnie and Clyde were on the way back to Dexter to rescue Buck and Blanche. It was a lie, of course, but it was something the crowd seemed ready to believe. In the words of Dr. Chapler, “In five or six minutes . . . you could have shot a cannonball down Main Street and never touched a soul.” 20
Bonnie and Clyde- A Twenty-First-Century Update Page 17
