On the Run With Bonnie & Clyde

by John Gilmore

  “—stop talkin’ all this kind of talk!” Bonnie cried. “I’m blowin’ all up over my body—swellin’ and I’m walkin’ like a crippled person. I can’t even feel my leg’s a part of the rest of me, and these flies are really awful—” She started coughing and Clyde stared at her, worried.

  Buck said, “I’m still thinkin’, brother, we ought to find Pretty Boy and him gettin’ us a place to hole up so Bonnie’s fixed right. Some place we can all take it easy and won’t be gettin’ our heads beat on.”

  “Some joke!” W.D. said. “Mister Floyd won’t do nothin’ for Clyde Barrow ’cause he’s jealous as a green-eyed jackass—and people go askin’ what’s Pretty Boy jealous about? The answer’s ’cause they’re scared of Clyde Barrow. All those big hotshots and they’re all scared of Clyde Barrow!”

  Thirty

  Blanche was throwing up. “Can’t help it!” she cried. “I’m sick of this jerkin’ and bouncin’ around. Can’t we get on another road? I’m goin’ on my knees and sayin’ a prayer to Jesus’n’ his virgin mother that soon as I’m outta here I’m gonna keep prayin’ to stay alive!”

  Bonnie groaned. “Maybe you wouldn’t be prayin’ and pokin’ so much, Blanche, if you kept your mouth shut.”

  “How ’bout you all shuttin’ up?” Clyde said. “Road’s bad enough without all the bullshittin’. Soon as we’re outta here we’ll stop and see how to keep y’all from pissin’ an’ moanin.’’’

  “I ain’t said a fuckin’ word,” Buck said.

  Clyde glanced at him through the mirror. “You just did, brother. Let’s keep it down till we get the fuck outta here.”

  They slept in the woods again. Clyde had a plan. He wanted to raid the First Battalion Armory on the Phillips University campus. He’d told Buck and W.D., “We hit it late night, get all we can carry outta there. You stay in the car, boy—never know if those fuckin’ patrols are snoopin’ around. Then we get outta Oklahoma.”

  “North into Kansas,” Buck said. “A couple banks.”

  Clyde nodded.

  Two nights later, Clyde and Buck carefully removed a pane of glass from the rear entrance to the armory on the Phillips campus in Enid. Inside the armory, both began assembling an impressive pile of thirty-five Colt .45 automatic pistols, eighty magazines, a hefty supply of ammunition and several Browning automatic rifles. Clyde brought several weapons and pairs of army field glasses to the car waiting at the rear entrance. W.D. quickly climbed out from behind the steering wheel and helped load the weapons and ammunition into the trunk of the car. The automatic rifles were stacked on the floor of the backseat. Clyde said nothing as he sorted the cache, his eyes dancing with excitement.

  Deserting the armory, broken glass inside the door, Clyde and Buck got into the car and drove slowly for the exit from the university grounds, cautious of alerting anyone. Clyde said to everyone in the car, “Nobody do any bitchin’ or pukin’ ’til we’re fuckin’ clear of Treasure Island.”

  W.D. chuckled, “I’ve never seen such a haul.”

  Buck said, “It’s a beauty. They gonna miss those BARs.”

  On the highway in minutes, Clyde then bypassed the main road to Kansas, and hit the graveled back roads again, heading north. Driving at a reasonable speed, he said, “We’ll be out of Oklahoma in minutes. You okay, Blanche?”

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  He said, “We’re outta Oklahoma and less than an hour we’ll reach the outskirts of Wichita and get a couple cabins.”

  For days the group traveled through Kansas and Nebraska, robbing gas stations. More robberies in South Dakota, then into Iowa and south to Missouri, Clyde staying close to state boundaries. Clyde drove into a service station a few miles south of Platte City, and stopped past the pumps. As the attendant approached the car, Clyde opened his door and got out. He was looking across the highway at the Red Crown Tavern and Café. “I’d like to see a couple cabins over there,” Clyde said. “My wife’s not feelin’ too hot, and my mother-in-law’s with us.”

  The attendant told Clyde the cabins were part of the Red Crown Tavern. “They got a restaurant and ballroom,” he said. Clyde thanked him and got back into the car. He told Blanche to go get adjoining cabins for them, with the garage in the middle.

  While Blanche secured the cabins, Clyde pulled across the road and waited. She came out and nodded, showing she had it taken care of, and waved the keys. The manager was watching through the office window.

  Clyde lifted Bonnie from the front seat. “I’m a fuckin’ cripple,” she said.

  Clyde shook his head. “I don’t mind carryin’ you, honey. You’re gonna be okay, ’cause you’re gonna heal up like you were.”

  The car was hidden in the garage separating the two cabins. The door to Clyde and Bonnie’s room was the only door from the garage. “Several times the garage door was opened and closed,” said Neal Houser, the Red Crown manager. “A lot of foot traffic from one cabin to the other, though they looked like a bunch of college kids gonna be having a wild time. The one girl I never saw—she remained in the cabin with the shorter fellow and the kid, the young one.” After unloading some of the weapons and ammo, with the garage door shut, both Clyde and Buck checked the cabin windows to make sure no one outside could see in.

  Early the next morning, Blanche and W.D. paid for the breakfasts, which Buck and Blanche shared with W.D. before he carried two more breakfasts back to the cabin housing Bonnie and Clyde. W.D. returned to the restaurant to buy newspapers.

  Clyde gave Blanche some money to drive into Platte City for some supplies at the drugstore. W.D. later said, “Clyde was eatin’ his breakfast, Bonnie was eatin’ hers, in bed readin’ the newspaper. I remember I asked her somethin’, like it was, ‘are you feelin’ alright?’ and she didn’t answer back, like she was mad about somethin’. He was sendin’ Blanche to the drugstore for more stuff to make Bonnie feel better. He was givin’ her shots and she didn’t mind. That stuff woulda made me crazy. I stayed in the cabin with him and Sis, read the comics in the paper, and then I went with Blanche to the city drugstore.

  “When I got back,” W.D. said, “Clyde sent me back to the restaurant for beers and food. What he done then was havin’ plastered the newspaper over the window so there wasn’t any way to look in, even between the crack in the blinds, and it was hotter than all get-out in that cabin. Bonnie didn’t get out of bed all the time, like she was in a hospital or somethin’. I did whatever was handy, like I had to carry her into the bathroom and sit her on the toilet, and then she’d rap on the door with a stick when she’d finished and I’d go in and lift her up and carry her back to the bed where she said was the best place she’d been in a long time.

  Clyde was sleeping while W.D. sat outside on the step. “I was just smokin’,” he says, “and then Blanche comes along with that manager fella who wanted to get the license plate number for his records ’cause he didn’t get it the night we came in, Clyde drivin’ across and not goin’ in the office. I went inside and Clyde was up and listenin’ to the fella and Blanche outside. He made a move like tellin’ me to open the door to the garage, but said only a little. The manager had written down the number and was walkin’ off after shuttin’ the garage door. Blanche had gone back into her and Buck’s cabin. Clyde was lookin’ at me, and I told him the guy had said he had to write it down on the card. Clyde didn’t look like he believed that, but then he shrugged and said if he had any laws runnin’ it the plates’d turn up swiped—didn’t match the car, meanin’ they’d know the car was swiped. I asked him what he wanted to do and he said we’d hang around a little more ’cause of how Bonnie was feelin’ and then we’d get outta there.”

  Clyde told Buck not to go outside the cabin the next day. Because of what W.D. and Buck had done—the shooting of that sheriff while Clyde had gone to get Billie Jean—he knew the laws were on the lookout. Clyde said, “They have it fuckin’ known everywhere, and they know what they’re lookin’ for.”

  W.D. said, “The laws didn’t kn
ow what I looked like ’cause there wasn’t any posters and stuff, but all that afternoon when I was goin’ in and out of the restaurant gettin’ beers and food and carryin’ them back to the cabins, everythin’ around the place was jittery a little, though there were a lot of folks in the restaurant. Blanche and I ate some tamale stuff and a couple of people were lookin’ at us, made me worried and sure as hell not friendly. Clyde seemed okay. He was bandagin’ up Bonnie’s leg and wanted more beer and more sandwiches, and when I went back to fetch ’em I saw a lot of other fellas had come in and they all looked like laws, but nobody was doin’ any investigatin’.

  “Later on after he ate a sandwich and drank some beer, Clyde was dozin’ on the wall side of the bed, that automatic rifle on the floor next to him. All day he’d monkey’d sawin’ the barrel down, making it shorter. He’d given Sis another shot and she was sleepin’, and except for me or him carryin’ her to the toilet and bringin’ her back, she never left the bed and didn’t go outside the cabin door. I guess I was gettin’ worried about her.”

  Cars were coming and going from the parking lot, and though several had arrived, the restaurant had closed. “It got quiet, late an’ still hot,” W.D. recalled. “I heard cars but sounded more like just the road or somethin’, and I turned a little to Clyde standin’ by the door to the garage. He said, ‘You hear him?’ I said, ‘No—who?’ He told me to shut up, then I hear the knockin’ on Buck’s door, and a fella’s sayin’, ‘I need to talk to the boys!’ and Blanche’s sayin’ the signal that Clyde’d worked out. She was sayin’ loud, ‘Just a minute, I’m gettin’ dressed!’ Clyde grabs up the BAR and opens the door from the cabin to the garage, and he’s all like crouchin’. I peel some paper from the window and lookin’ to Buck’s cabin I see the guy outside, and holy cow, he’s carryin’ something, like big sheet of metal in front of him. Then he’s waggin’ his hand towards this car that’s got all that same sort of sheet metal stuff on like a they’d made an armored car for themselves. Then fast: BANG! The shot from Buck’s cabin and the guy with the shield goes trippin’ back and falls down. At that all hell busts loose, and Clyde says, ‘Get Bonnie in the car!’

  “I got the car key and got her up off the bed. She feels so light, she’s shakin’. Clyde’s shootin’ out the window ’cause there’s a dozen guys out there and they’re shootin’ at the cabins now—both cabins ’cause Clyde shootin’ and Buck’s shootin’. There’s shootin’ all over the place. I got the car door unlocked and Bonnie inside, gettin’ her slunked down so she won’t get hit unless they shoot right through the door. Bullets’re hittin’ the garage—a window’s busted, they’re plunkin’ at Clyde’s cabin, and he’s right there comin’ at the car. He says, ‘Get the garage open!’ So I go to the latch and start pushin’ it open. Clyde’s been shootin’ at that funny armored car with the BAR that shoots right through that metal crap and he’s hit the guy behind the wheel ’cause the car’s backin’ off, and then here’s Blanche runnin’ behind Buck who’s shootin’ from the waist. ‘Get in the car!’ Clyde’s yellin’, and I’m gettin’ in but Blanche is screamin’ that Buck’s hit, and I scoot up and out the rear door, grabbin’ at him as she’s tryin’ to support him, but together we get him moved into the back seat where blood’s squirtin’ out of his head.

  “Just a second and we’re movin’ like hell on fire. I’ve got one of the BARs Buck dropped and I’m pluggin’ past the laws who’re kind of runnin’ after us shootin’. I hear the slugs plunkin’ at the car and then one busts the back window on Blanche’s side. She cries out, ‘I’m hit! I’m hit!’ and holdin’ her hands to her face—but she’s thrown back as Clyde’s acceleratin’ ahead like a shot-out cannon ball.”

  Thirty-One

  He’d been in the area before. He’d driven past the same stumps and trunks of trees that blocked the sun. Over the dirt road, past thick underbrush and hard-packed hilly slopes, the front wheels of the V-8 angled from side to side as Clyde steered sharply through the deserted Dexfield Park. He could almost sense the same spot where he’d stashed another car the last time.

  Buck was breathing hard from the backseat, unconscious but groaning. Before entering the park, Blanche had nodded off from exhaustion, and Bonnie asked Clyde, “Is she gonna be blind?”

  “The busted glass got in the one eye,” he said, “not both eyes. I gotta get a special kind of doctor’s scissors at the drugstore, a point that’s small and blunt so it doesn’t scrape the eye. I can get the glass outta her eye if the pieces’re big enough to see.”

  She whispered, “What about Buck?”

  Clyde looked at her. “I don’t know. Just keep the wound from gettin’ too infected. Maybe it’ll heal over. I don’t know, honey.…”

  When the car thumped hard over a muddy ditch, Buck opened his eyes. He tried to reach up but Blanche held his hand. He said, “Where are we goin’?”

  “Gonna stop in a minute,” Clyde said. “We’re in an empty fairgrounds north of Dexter—it’s just a few miles down the road we were on. You can go back to sleep, brother. You hurtin’?”

  Buck mumbled. Blanche said, “He didn’t hear you say that. He’s sleepin’ again.”

  “He’ll be okay,” Clyde said. “Ain’t nothin’ to worry about.” He approached a shady rise, turned off the dirt road, and came to a stop. “I’m gettin’ us settled here, and then headin’ back to the town for food and medical supplies.”

  “You want me to come with you?” Bonnie asked. “I’ll wait in the car—I don’t know if I can walk too good.”

  Clyde shook his head. “Stay here.”

  “I’ll go in with you,” W.D. said.

  “You stay here and get us a camp goin’,” Clyde told him. “Help get Buck outta of the car and take these seats up so we got somewhere to sit.”

  Buck moved his hand to the back of Bonnie’s seat as if to pull himself forward. He said, “Oh… This is okay, Bud.” His eyes were closed. Blanche placed the towel over his wound, mopping the fluid that had leaked from his head. He tried to reach her hand, but held her wrist. “I can’t see it.…” he said.

  “What’re you lookin’ for?” Bonnie asked.

  After a moment, Buck said, “I saw those trees…”

  “Yes!” Blanche said, encouragingly. “You’re right, honey. We’re in a big park. There’s woods all around, and we’re gonna be campin’ until you’re feelin’ okay.” Buck said he was thirsty and Blanche looked at Bonnie, who’d turned around, then Blanche looked at the back of Clyde’s head. “He isn’t any better,” she said. “Keeps sayin’ things that most don’t make sense. I’m not seein’ hardly at all. I close my eye and it’s like needles pushin’ in the back of my head.”

  “I’m goin’ to get grub and medicine and more painkillers for all three of you. Buck’s had the last we’ve been usin’.”

  W.D. said, “That hole plumb through my side’s stingin’ like a son of a bitch.”

  Bonnie said, “Get a big bottle of aspirin, daddy, and drinkin’ cups, and get some water and ice. Get hot dogs and plenty of aspirin.”

  “We’re sure needin’ more painkillers,” Blanche said. “Soon as it wears off of him the pain’s gonna be awful.”

  Clyde opened the back door, leaned in, and helped W.D. and Blanche move Buck out of the car. “He’s walkin’ and talkin’ and next minute he’s like this,” Blanche said. Outside the car, Clyde moved the towel from Buck’s head and looked at the wound.

  “Gonna be a damn wonder,” W.D. said, “gettin’ him in any kind of shape to go much farther.”

  “You shut your trap!” Blanche hissed. “Though he looks like he can’t hear you, he’s hearin’ you sayin’ that! He hasn’t got any notion about dyin’ in this damn wilderness.”

  “He ain’t hearin’ a whole lot right now,” Clyde said, “’cause he’s out cold.” He told W.D., “Get the car seat out and keep Buck off the dirt. Get what we need outta the car so I can take off. You keep that shotgun and ammo and a couple .45s. Sun’s goin’ down so get some s
ticks and branches and start a little campfire to roast hot dogs.”

  “Get some good buns and mustard,” Bonnie said.

  “See if they got marshmallows,” Blanche said. “Buck’s always roastin’ marshmallows first chance he gets—makin’ them sweet and brown.”

  Bonnie said, “Oh, daddy, I gotta eat somethin’. My stomach’s shrinkin’ on me like my leg’s shrinkin’ shorter than the other leg. Is there anyone patrollin’ this park?”

  “I haven’t seen anybody,” Clyde said. “This whole land’s big and rollin’ with hills and these woods. What the hell they gonna be lookin’ for? Campers comin’ sometimes, but I reckon they pick where they’re gonna have a picnic, and we’re so far out on this end there ain’t gonna be anyone on the road we just came on. ’Sides, I figure these local folks don’t wander too far in here. More they get a little campfire and be layin’ and lookin’ up at the stars.”

  “With a hole in their head?” Blanche said. “And busted glass stickin’ in their eye?”

  Clyde sighed. “We’re takin’ care of what we can, Blanche—”

  “—both you and W.D. been shot,” Blanche said, “and I can’t see outta my eye, except the shot-up shape Buck’s in that’s damn near killin’ me. Get whatever you can to kill pain, Clyde. And I mean pain! What’re we gonna do?”

  “We’re gonna do as we’re doin’,” Clyde said. “Stay here and keep him restin’, and I’ll look at your eye soon as I get back with what we need to help Buck and you and Bonnie—”

  “—and me,” W.D. said.