by John Gilmore
Johns said, “I’d enjoy our travelin’ more if we weren’t goin’ so fast.”
“You’re alright,” Clyde said. “Give him some of those chocolate cookies, honey. He’s lookin’ less nervous.”
The deputy wasn’t less nervous. He’d never driven with someone who propelled over narrow dirt roads at the speed Clyde traveled, the speedometer shaking in the danger zone. Clyde, driving with his right shoe off, had the gas pedal almost to the floor, and the moments the road straightened he broke ahead like a horse at a starting gate. He barreled through a wet ditch, his windshield so splattered with mud his view of the road was blocked. Instead of slowing down, Clyde opened his door and half-leaned from the car to get a view of the road, keeping at the same breakneck speed, turning and twisting on the narrow trails. They stopped by an irrigation ditch and Ray washed the windshield before they sped ahead. By now, the deputy had been enlisted to consult the Texas map and offered suggestions on the roads infrequently traveled. After a few minutes Clyde asked Johns, “Why’d you come bargin’ to her aunt’s anyway? What brought you sneakin’ out there?”
Johns cleared his throat, chasing down the last of the cookie with a gulp of Coca-Cola. “Well,” he said, “I owe you that. Some ol’ boy called us, sayin’ he was callin’ for Bonnie’s aunt. Said she was scared out of her wits seein’ one of your guns—a sawed-off shotgun. She didn’t know what to do. Seein’ I’m acquainted with the lady, I said I’d talk to her. I got there and figured the car was stolen so I wanted to talk to you, but none of you were in a mood for talkin’.”
Bonnie said, “But we’re havin’ our talk now, aren’t we? Are you uncomfortable, Deputy?”
“Uncomfortable?” he said. “I don’t know as I’d put it that way, Bonnie. I’d say I’m concerned and thinkin’ how long you’re havin’ me on this ride.”
“Nobody’s gonna harm you,” Clyde said. “You haven’t given any good cause to get yourself shot. I’ve got no plans of hurtin’ you.”
“I appreciate that,” Johns said. “And I’m enjoyin’ your company, but I’ve never been in a situation like the sort we’re havin’.”
Clyde said, “What do you mean ‘situation’?”
“I’ve never been kidnapped before—”
“—kidnapped?” Bonnie said. “You’re not bein’ kidnapped. That’s what you’re still believin’?”
“It crosses my mind,” he said. “I don’t know what else it is—what you’d call it.”
“Bein’ a companion!” she said. “We’re all company and enjoyin’ the occasion. Aren’t we?”
“Sure,” Clyde said.
“Then so am I,” Johns said, sighing a little. “That’s a mighty friendly way of puttin’ it.”
“Don’t let it be a big load off your mind,” Clyde said. “It’ll depend on your cooperatin’ with us.”
Silence except for the straining engine, and within minutes, Bonnie’s eyes had shut, her head nodding slowly. Clyde reached across the deputy and nudged her shoulder. “Wake up, honey, we gotta get gas. We’re damn near in the middle of a cattle pen, but I saw a pump.”
“It’s up ahead,” Ray said. “Looks like a shack that’s got a gas pump.”
Bonnie raised her head. “Out here in nowhere, and they got a gas pump.”
“They got their own gas,” Johns said. “For the ranchers that live around here.”
“It’s all cattle,” Clyde said, then to Ray, “Get Bonnie off your lap and go get us some gas.” He handed Ray some money and said, “Let’s have the deputy’s fancy Colt.”
Handing the gun to Clyde, Ray said, “Smells like these cattle’re shittin’ everywhere.” He squeezed out beneath Bonnie, bracing herself with one hand on Johns’ shoulder.
Clyde said, “Check that right rear tire, and clean off the windshield again.”
Ray gave a salute. “Yes, sir! Right now, sir!”
“Sometimes Ray and Clyde don’t get along,” Bonnie said to the deputy.
“Why’s that?” Johns asked.
Clyde said, “He likes to think he’s a hotshot—thinks he’s Baby Face Nelson. He’s good on the spot but gettin’ there and after it’s done he’s a pain in the ass.”
“You’re some driver,” Johns said. “I’ve never seen anyone take these roads like you’re doin’. I thought we were gonna get killed half a dozen times.”
“Doesn’t bother Clyde,” Bonnie said.
“Don’t you ever get tuckered out?” Johns asked.
“Not drivin’,” Clyde said.
Bonnie said, “We can go through four or five states in a day every day, and Clyde never stops drivin’—except to get different cars. Sometimes three cars in a day.” She looked at Johns. “Guess I shouldn’t be talkin’ like I am. You might be the man who’s gonna arrest me.”
“What would I be arrestin’ you for?” he said.
“You’d be knowin’ that better than I would,” she said.
When Ray got back in the car, shifting for Bonnie to squeeze onto his lap, he said, “I gotta get some fuckin’ sleep. I feel like I’m walkin’ drunk or ridin’ a fuckin’ rolleycoaster.”
“Rollercoaster,” Bonnie said. “None of us have eaten all day,” she told Johns. “Didn’t you get any breakfast?”
“Coffee and a roll,” Johns said. “Some of your chocolate cookies. I don’t like eatin’ much for breakfast. Gets night like this a body does get hungry.”
“I could eat one of these goddamn steers,” Ray mumbled as Clyde passed the gun back to him. The deputy did not glance down at the Colt as it crossed his stomach. Ray said, “How you doin’, Deputy? You holdin’ up?”
Johns laughed a little. “Just wonderin’ how far we’re gonna be gettin’.”
“Wherever it is, somebody wake me when we get there,” Ray replied.
Clyde turned the key, checked the fuel gauge, and made a wide turn. They drove across a field, maneuvering past the cattle, and onto to a dirt road heading east. Clyde asked Johns, “This the road that takes us to the south turnoff?”
“Yes,” the deputy said.
Ray said, “Our kidnapped law’s wonderin’ how far we’re goin’?”
“He said he’s not kidnapped,” Clyde said, then to Johns, “Isn’t that right? You’re nobody kidnapped?”
“I reckon you’re right,” Deputy Johns said. “I’m company—a companion.”
“That’s right!” Bonnie said. “Do you want some more Coca-Cola?”
Clyde said, “But he’s in his rights sayin’ he’s kidnapped, and gettin’ that Lindbergh law stuck on us. But it won’t make any difference, because if they grab Ray he’s sure to fry—but it’s just once they can give it to him. The same for me only nobody’s gonna get me.”
“What about you?” Johns asked Bonnie.
“Nobody’s gonna get her either,” Clyde said. “She hasn’t smoked no one or stuck up any bank or nothin’ else. She ain’t accused of nothin’ except stickin’ with me.”
It was clear from all the deputy heard that Bonnie had not actively participated in any crime, other than being an accomplice. On the other hand, Ray Hamilton was the wild card. Johns guessed that Ray had never trusted anyone in his life. He could shoot the deputy for the plain convenience of it, to make more room on the seat of the car. He guessed that Clyde enjoyed the “cat and mouse” encounter. Clyde, the lynchpin, probably wouldn’t kill Johns unless he made a move against him, which of course was the furthest thought from the deputy’s thinking.
Clyde at the helm, they raced southeast on dark trails to avoid being spotted on an open road. Bonnie had dropped off in sleep, her head tipped and resting against the sheriff’s right shoulder. Johns sighed. He hoped he wouldn’t be shot and get his body dumped on the side of some pitch-black desolate back road to be picked over by crows and coyotes.
Nineteen
It was five thirty in the morning, a few miles from San Antonio. Clyde drifted to the side of the road, got out of the car, lit a cigar and said to Deputy Johns,
“Well, come on and get out.”
“What’re you aimin’ to do?” Johns asked.
“This is where you’re gettin’ out,” Clyde said, reaching into his pocket. “Aren’t you tired of us all bein’ cramped in the front of this heap?”
Johns was staring at Clyde. “I won’t be shootin’ you.” Clyde said, “I’m gonna give you some money so you can get back where you’re goin’.”
Relieved, Johns sighed and shook his head, sort of waved a little. “No, thanks, I got some money, not much…”
“Now you got more,” Clyde said, pushing some folded bills into Johns’ shirt pocket. “You’ve got a watch, so you look at it and give me an hour before you head off alertin’ laws. Give us a little break.”
“We’ve given you one!” Bonnie called from the car.
Johns nodded. He shook hands with Clyde, and then said, “What about my gun? Can I have my gun back?”
“Well,” Clyde said, “it’s a pretty good gun, and I’ll have to keep it.” He got back into the car and drove away quickly.
The sun was sinking in the west as Clyde stole a Ford V-8 sedan in Victoria, then quickly maneuvered out of the town. Bonnie, half-asleep, lay stretched on the passenger seat with her feet on Clyde’s lap.
Ray, manning the Ford coupe, followed Clyde as they drove northeast to Wharton and the bridge across the Colorado River. Clyde turned off the highway and onto a side road, but as soon as he crossed some railroad tracks he realized the dirt road was going west. “Gettin’ in a hole,” he said and stopped. Bonnie sat up and lit a cigarette. A moment later, Ray pulled alongside the sedan. Clyde said, “We gotta go back—get off this dirt road and cross the bridge.”
Ray waved for Clyde to turn around. In moments both were back on the highway to Wharton. Up ahead was the bridge, but also another car that came abruptly off a side road and onto the bridge.
Immediately the car made a turn at the other end of the bridge and was coming back, head on, towards Clyde’s car. “This is no good,” Clyde said. “Son of a bitch is showin’ a gun—get your head down!” Clyde kept going, increasing speed, and as the oncoming car approached within a few feet of the sedan, the driver fired straight through Clyde’s windshield.
Bonnie cried and said, “You hit?” He shook his head. She turned to the rear window. “He’s stopped. They’re gonna block the bridge. Some other guy’s got a gun and Ray’s comin’ on the bridge!”
Seeing the second cop aiming at him, Ray ducked behind the wheel, slumping as low as he could. He heard the shot, felt the bullet as it hit the car door, but didn’t know whether he’d been hit or not. He accelerated as more bullets struck the car, shattering the rear window as Ray chased after Clyde.
A few miles north, Clyde and Ray pulled off the road onto a dirt trail behind a cluster of deserted buildings. “Shit,” Ray said. “We almost got our asses blown off!” He helped Clyde and Bonnie empty the coupe, saying, “You got some ventilation in your window.” Quickly, the three climbed into the sedan, Clyde driving with Ray sprawling on the rear seat. “Fucker thought he’d shot my ass,” Ray said.
Clyde said, “Slug didn’t go through the door. Stuck in the middle.”
“Better there,” Ray said, “than in my ass. They must be crawlin’ everywhere for us.”
“And shootin’ on sight,” Bonnie said.
“I’m not nuts about gettin’ shot without even knowin’ who’s doin’ the shootin’. If you two don’t mind, I’d like to set my ass where nobody’s drawin’ a bead. I’ve had enough of this committin’ suicide shit.”
Bonnie laughed.
Twenty
It was all kind of in the family. Clyde’s younger brother, L.C., admired Clyde but was growing quickly aware of some insurmountable, impenetrable lump between them, keeping the closeness Clyde often shared with Buck at a distance. L.C. had told his sister Nell, “With Buck gone off in prison, and Clyde runnin’, seems we can’t hold together like it used to be.”
Nell said, “There’s nothin’ like it used to be.”
Not a blood cousin with the others was William “Deacon” of the Jones family, cronies with Cumie and Henry Barrow. W.D., as they called him, unlike L.C., admired Clyde the same as he’d hail to the desperate heroes in the funny books he stole from Dallas markets. Sixteen years old and running around with L.C., W.D. often tracked Clyde as an envious dog seeking the ideal master.
Present at the Christmas Eve family get-together, L.C. having notified the family members, W.D. found himself side by side with Clyde, and said to him, “I’d sure like to drive with you, Bud. I can drive good, you know, and I don’t never get nervous of what I’m doin’.”
Clyde nodded absently. “What do you get nervous about, boy? You lookin’ to drive my car?”
“Or any car you happen to be sittin’ in,” W.D. said, smiling. “I could go along, helpin’ you and Bonnie.”
“Helpin’ us do what?”
“Whatever you’re doin’. What you’re doin’ at the time, you know?”
“No, I don’t know,” Clyde said.
“I do a lot of stuff,” W.D. said. He looked around and, in a hushed tone, said, “I can shoot, too. I’ve done robbed already, you know.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about what you’ve done,” Clyde said, “but I’ll tell you, boy, shootin’s damned easier than robbin’. The idea is robbin’ without any shootin’. You get what I’m sayin’?”
“I understand that,” W.D. said. “I can rob as good as I can shoot.”
“I don’t need anybody to do shootin’. Any shootin’ to be done I already know what’s gotta be shot at. You can steal a car?”
W.D. straightened himself up. “I sure can, Bud. You point one out and I’ll get it runnin’ fast as any key’ll do it.”
Clyde said, “Swipin’ cars and robbin’ gas stations and such, you gotta be on your toes. Sounds like chicken feed—like you go in and pick it up. You don’t. You go in fast and you get out fast and you don’t do any shootin’ unless it looks like laws or someone’s got a drop on you. Even then, somebody like you, well, you don’t know shit from a head of cabbage.”
Insisting, W.D. said, “Yes, I do so, and I learn fast. You and Sis are outlaws—”
“She’s not an ‘outlaw’,” Clyde said. She’s never pointed any gun at anybody in her life.”
“Okay, I don’t mean it. I mean is I got the guts to do a lot and I can learn a whole bunch more. My momma, Tookie, bein’ close with your momma, well, they say I’m smart as a whip. That’s what your own momma said.”
“You’re a squirt-nose kid,” Clyde said. “I’ve been seein’ you as a kid since you’ve grown as tall as you are, but you never seemed so smart to me. You take a magazine course on gettin’ smart—on just bein’ an outlaw? What you want to learn, boy, is you smoke someone you sure as shit’ll be sittin’ in the hot seat, so learn to put your brain where your finger is, and don’t go stickin’ it up your nose.”
“I know all that,” W.D. said. “No one’s got you in any hot seat.”
“No,” Clyde said, “but they got my name on the list and underlined in red ink, though they’re never gonna strap me into that son of a bitch. Nobody’s gonna get me against a wall ’cause I think on my feet and I won’t be goin’ down. You think you can think on your feet?”
W.D. took a breath. Again, he said, “I can learn fast. I can learn if I was helpin’ you doin’ the stuff, like maybe stuff you don’t want to do.”
Clyde stared at him. “What the hell would you be doin’ that I don’t want to do?”
“I don’t know—whatever you’d me to do that you don’t want to do.”
“Look,” Clyde said, “you’re wantin’ me to be draggin’ you off, and you don’t know what you’re gettin’ yourself into. Draw a line, boy, and don’t cross over it.”
“I’m gonna cross it, Bud. I want to go along with you and Sis.”
“Jesus Christ!” Clyde said and drank the rest of the cola. He sighed and said, “Me
and Sis are takin’ outta here, and you wantin’ to ride with us, you go on walkin’ down the road and we’ll get you in the car.”
Grinning, W.D. said, “Why not right here?”
“I don’t want your momma or mine seein’ you settin’ out with us. And don’t be sayin’ to L.C. you’re takin’ a ride with Bonnie and me. You understand me, boy?” He took W.D.’s arm and said, “Write this in your head and wake up readin’ it. Anyone gettin’ into a car with us is no different than turnin’ yourself into a tin duck at a shootin’ gallery. You know what I’m sayin’?”
W.D. said, “Sure, I know what you’re sayin’. But you aren’t any tin duck, and I ain’t gonna be any duck for anybody.”
That night, when Clyde and Bonnie reached Temple, Texas, W.D. was hunched down on the backseat, smiling as the lights of the road ran popping like a string of electric lights. When the car pulled off the road towards a row of cabins, Clyde and W.D. stayed in the car. Bonnie went into the motor court office and got a cabin for the night.
Backing up to the cabin, they passed a swing and Bonnie told W.D., “Soon as we’re in the cabin, you come over here and get that cushion. That’s what you’ll sleep on.”
“But you’ll be awake for a spell,” Clyde said, “until I wake up, and we’re gonna take turns sittin’ at the window to see who’s comin’ and who’s not comin’.”
“How am I gonna see who’s not comin’?” W.D. asked.
“That’s what you’ll be ponderin’ as you’re sittin’ there,” Bonnie said.
A few minutes later while Bonnie was in the metal-walled shower stall, steam filling the room, Clyde was on the bed, the shotgun and a revolver in easy reach. W.D. said, “Won’t I be needin’ a gun for lookin’ out?”
“No,” Clyde said. “You wake me if anyone’s creepin’ ’round out there.”
After her shower, Bonnie turned off the light and climbed into bed alongside Clyde. She said, “I used a towel but we’ll take both with us.” She turned over in the dark to the silhouette of W.D. at the window, and said, “Tomorrow’s Christmas, boy, and maybe Santa Claus’ll bring you a present.”
