On the Run With Bonnie & Clyde

by John Gilmore

  “Simmons made a special point of tellin’ me that since Clyde and I’d been friends, it was only a matter of time before he’d have Barrow back in Huntsville—the Walls. He said, ‘There’s a lot in here thinkin’ Barrow’s gonna be some avengin’ angel, and praisin’ the bastard like some king on a mountain.’ He said anybody encouragin’ anyone else with ideas of bustin’ out were gonna find themselves in the hole until doomsday—if they lived that long. Simmons got real close to me and said nobody’d be pullin’ anythin’ in a Texas prison as long as he was layin’ down the law.”

  Shortly after the meeting with Simmons, Ralph found himself moved out of Eastham and transferred back to the Walls. The first plan had been for Ray to escape with Ralph, but that idea changed when Ralph got word to Clyde that he wouldn’t be able to make it, but wanted another prisoner, Hilton Bybee, to go in his place. Bybee was serving two concurrent life sentences for robbery and murder, since during a hold-up he’d shot a man between the shoulder blades “just for the fun it.” He’d managed to beat the death penalty, but landed the life sentences with a twenty-five year cap tacked on.

  As though in direct defiance, and with no interest in an official point of view, Clyde’s plans for the assault on Eastham accelerated swiftly. Two Colt .45 automatics, plus ammunition for each, were wrapped into a cut-out hunk of old inner tube and delivered by Clyde and Bonnie to Eastham farm before dawn. On that dark, freezing Sunday morning in January of ’34, Ray’s brother, Floyd Hamilton, was in the car, as was Jimmy Mullins, a 48 year old ex-convict, drug addict and thug that Clyde did not like. Though Mullins had been promised $1000 to stash the guns and “work” the break-out, Clyde had told Bonnie, “I don’t even like lookin’ at Mullins.”

  Clyde drove without lights onto the Eastham farm grounds, and stopped half a mile from the prison. Floyd and Mullins got out and went on foot, following a drainage ditch until they reached a small bridge. The inner tube-wrapped guns were hidden under the bridge—less than 200 yards from the main building. After stashing the guns, Floyd and Mullins hurried back to the car.

  Later that same Sunday, Floyd and his wife paid a visit to Ray, and passed on the information as to where they’d find the guns. Other on-the-run meetings and passing of information from Clyde had taken place between Floyd and the convicts in on the “break.” 21-year-old Henry Methvin, a Louisiana friend of Clyde’s, was serving ten years for auto theft and assault with intent to murder. Word had come back from Methvin that he was “ready for a visit.”

  The hidden guns were retrieved by a trustee and delivered to Joe Palmer, a 30-year-old old prisoner who suffered asthma and ill health in general. Palmer faked an asthma attack on the day before the planned raid in order to conceal the two guns beneath his mattress. Later that night, Ray picked up one of the guns from Palmer.

  Both men were now armed. Clyde’s obsession, as Ralph would call it, had reached its brim and was about to spill over. Ralph would later say, “That day was about as freezin’ and foggy as my thinkin’ had been for as far back as I could draw it up. I couldn’t see it for anythin’ back then, but the gettin’ moved out of the farm and not bein’ able to take part in Clyde’s raid on Eastham was, in all ways, a blessin’ that’d pay off for me in bein’ granted a future to live out.”

  In 1986, I had a subsequent visit with retired bank robber Henry Edwards in Houston, Texas, while Edwards was visiting friends in Baytown. “Lookin’ back on Barrow bustin’ those boys outta Eastham prison,” he said, “I could’ve told you those boys were gonna have a problem. Not in actually the doin’ of it, but in where it was gonna go sometime thereafter. What went fast was that break-out business, ’cause Clyde and Jimmy Mullins had some heavy weaponry in those rifles, even though Clyde didn’t want to do any direct shootin’ at laws, but instead sendin’ sprays overhead that was enough to get anyone’s stomach on the ground. Idea’s the same as artillery backin’ up a front-line offensive—or a retreat maneuver. Keeps chasin’ back what’s comin’ after you. Like that movie, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, where you’ve got the kinda break from a prison work farm, and they had that idea from what was real like what we’re talkin’ about.

  “Ray Hamilton followed up Joe Palmer, a shooter, who got the rider—the ‘boss’, you’d call him—plugged him in the gut and Ray takes a shot at him, then another one at the other screw, so they’ve got two down—two dead, and then make their run while Clyde and Jimmy’re givin’ ’em cover, Bonnie blowin’ that horn.

  “I knew these kinda guys,” Edwards told me, “knew a lot of ’em, and over the years I’ve kept interested in seein’ what’s said about stuff, same like some fellas collect stamps or broads, and havin’ done time I can look at what they did an’ see how it could’ve been better.” Edwards said, “It got ’em nowhere ’cept a couple years hidin’ under rocks or runnin’ their asses off, and then what? Fuckin’ electric chair. Nothin’ else in their heads but what they’re wantin’ to do and shoot’n’ the shit outta the world.

  “What I’m sayin’ now’s just a sorta game I get a kick outta playin’, or lookin’ at old half-dead people that’ve had a past—had a life. I can say Clyde had the right ideas or intents to be what you’d call a ‘master criminal,’ like those funny-lookin’ guys you had Dick Tracy in the funnies runnin’ after tryin’ to nail ’em. You take Clyde’s brother, Buck, and it was just that where Clyde was and how he’d come outta that junkyard he was raised in, and bein’ poor’n’ livin’ the life he’d led. You can see what I’m sayin’, like for me it’s a little game and you’re just pushin’ these play figures around.”

  Talking to Edwards, I was most interested in the so-called “underground telegraph” between the Walls, the Huntsville prison, and the Eastham situation. Edwards told me, “It keeps changin’ from time to time, but you always gotta have someone outside. Clyde had his little sidekick with him, that Bonnie gal, and he didn’t have any other friends. In the reality of things, they had each other and there was no one else playin’ any fixed place in how they were—runnin’ an’ runnin’ round in a circle in an’ outta half the country like two kids cut loose in your amusement park. He was like the roadrunner—you know what I’m sayin’? With that coyote playin’ the laws and thinkin’ up every way to hammer ’em down but gettin’ outsmarted like Clyde’s not able to hit nothin’ but bullseyes. An’ hittin’ the banks—who’d they walk away with? Joe Palmer? A sick guy with a bad personality, but faithful, y’know? Straight-shooter. Henry Methvin? Face all covered with zits’n’ red like he’s been dunked in the pot you’re cookin’ a lobster in. Hilton Bybee, like a guy that’s walkin’ with the devil inside him. And certainly Ray, the boy with the mouth you could stick a shoe in. But you had to chance it with that cracked nut—couldn’t do nothin’ right except rob a neighborhood bank until he run outta the brains to do that.

  “No, Clyde wasn’t a candy store robber. He was a genuine outlaw, one that’s here and gone and left their mark as big as a brand. All he needed was to go it alone, no troops, no army—but you can’t say he sure as hell didn’t try. He busted those boys out and they hit a dozen banks, but damn near each job one of ’em was fallin’ off. The general—that’s Clyde—had ideas bigger than almost anyone could get their hands around. His brother couldn’t even think straight. These guys like what he busted out were solo Johnnies—no one who’s ever wantin’ to shoulder the success of a good job that’s been done workin’ with somebody else. Or they got sick—they got hardons, got dope or hooked with some bone-headed cunt, got drained or shot to shit by laws or electric chairs, or a rope around their neck. There was always an end and it always ended. Clyde should’ve stuck on his own—should’ve kept on his own. His needin’ to boss that gang he sprung out’s what brought him down.”

  Thirty-Seven

  Clyde rolled off Highway 114 onto a wide dirt road called Dove Lane, drove a short distance, then turned the car around. Henry sat up from the rear seat, coughed and said, “This where we meetin’ your folks?” Clyde nodded
and Henry slumped against the left passenger door, opened it, and got out. Following Henry out of the car, Clyde told Bonnie, “I’m gettin’ in the back. Wake me when they get there. You tired?”

  “I’m not tired,” she said. “I’m gonna take a walk so I won’t be pukin’ on the floor. I feel kinda sick and I don’t want to be sick when I see my mom.” Clyde sat back, tipping his hat over his eyes.

  Bonnie opened the car door, got out, and strolled to the edge of the road where the dirt ended and weeds began. She stretched her arms, reaching her hands above her head. The cloudless sky was cold, the color of metal. She shivered slightly. The ground was cold.

  Clyde had climbed back into the front and stationed himself behind the steering wheel, his arms folded across his chest and his eyes closed. Then his eyes opened, alert.

  Bonnie looked toward the highway, hearing the sound of motorcycles. More than one. She walked back to the car as three motorcycles slowed down on the highway. Two motorcycles made a turn as though heading back in the direction they’d come. Instead of continuing on the highway, the two uniformed cops turned onto Dove Lane while the third law kept going down the highway.

  Bonnie grabbed Clyde’s arm. “I see ’em,” he said. “Highway Patrol. You get your head down, honey. Keep it down so they don’t see you.”

  “Nosey sons of bitches are comin’ right at us,” Henry said from the backseat. He reached toward the floor for the BAR.

  “Hold on,” Clyde said, starting the engine. “I got a better idea.”

  The two laws stopped their motorcycles a distance from the parked car, having yet to make out its passengers. One cop was climbing off his motorcycle when Clyde said to Henry, “Let’s take ’em—” but before he could raise the shotgun to force both men into the car, Henry squeezed off a volley that blew the first patrolman backwards over his motorcycle, which fell on top of him. The second man frantically reached for his weapon—a sawed-off shotgun held in a scabbard attached to his motorcycle, but in a second went down with a second blast from Henry.

  “Shit!” Clyde said. “What the hell’s the matter with you!”

  “Son of a bitch is still kickin’!” Henry said, jumping from the car. He ran to the downed man, rolled him over and pumped two more bullets through the man’s body.

  “Get back in the fuckin’ car!” Clyde yelled, revving the engine, jumping ahead, and almost taking off before Henry could climb into the rear.

  Henry said, “You said let’s get ’em, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t say let’s shoot ’em!”

  “What the fuck,” Henry said. “What’s the difference?” As they left the dirt road, skidding, Clyde took the car at full throttle heading east.

  While Henry drained a pint of rye, Bonnie, almost crying, said, “Our folks’re gonna be there and I can’t see my momma for Easter. They’re gonna see what’s happened—everybody’s gonna see it. Dead laws layin’ in the dirt.”

  There wasn’t a lot of talking as they sped from Grapevine in a cloud of dust. Clyde drove intently, bent forward, looking straight ahead. Bonnie was thinking over what they’d left behind, and every lawman in a car or on a motorcycle or riding a horse would be loaded for bear and on Clyde’s trail.

  Henry was hunched over on his left side with the BAR on the floor. He grumbled, made grunting sounds. Dreaming, Bonnie thought, wondering what on earth he’d dream about. She put herself close to Clyde, her left shoulder against his right arm. He turned his head a little, glancing at her. “You okay, honey?” he asked.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  “Can’t you sleep?”

  “I still don’t feel good. I’m hungry. Henry’s keepin’ me awake anyway.”

  “Sounds like a pig, doesn’t he?” Clyde said. “A fuckin’ hog in a mud hole.”

  “He makes me sick,” she said. “I’m more sick right now with those two dead laws at our back. I got to forget it. I want to block it outta my head, so I’m thinkin’ about my stomach. My stomach’s empty, but I’m sick that’s got nothin’ to do with my stomach.”

  “We’re gonna be crossin’ the lake,” Clyde said. “Got to get off the highway, so we’ll be a while before we’re stoppin’.”

  “I know,” she said. “I know.”

  “Maybe we’ll get you somethin’ in Greenville. Maybe, I’m sayin’, ’cause we gotta clear out of Texas.”

  Throwing a glance into the rear, Bonnie said, “Now he’s shut up. Sleepin’ with his mouth hangin’ open like he’s dead as those laws we’ve left layin’ on the road.”

  “Can’t be helped,” Clyde said. “I had no reason to drill those fellas. ‘We’ll take ’em’, I said. I wasn’t sayin’ let’s shoot their asses off. Goddamn him, ’cause those fellas didn’t know who we were.”

  “We could’ve had some fun tellin’ stories,” she said. “They weren’t even goin’ for their guns.”

  “All of it was bein’ too fast,” Clyde said. “He didn’t heed what I said, and wasn’t any time before he let loose on those fellas. I oughta pull over and throw him out. Maybe I will around one of these woods.”

  “Only get him pissed and he’ll be liable to rat on us.”

  “I’d have to shut him up first,” Clyde said.

  “I shouldn’t have been walkin’ around,” she said. “I should’ve been sleepin.’”

  “What’s the difference if you’re sleepin’ or walkin’?”

  “Drinkin’ in the mornin’s like we’ve done’s knocked me out,” she said. “Henry was drunk—he’s still drunk and sweatin’ all over his face.”

  “Even cut that shit he’s drinkin’, half with factory rye,” he said. “That plain moon’s so strong you leak a drop without it disappearin’ before it hits the ground.” He patted her leg. “Go to sleep now, honey. Don’t get your stomach sick and you go to sleep.”

  “I don’t like to sleep all the time when you’re drivin’.”

  He laughed a little. “You wanna drive?”

  “I like to drive when I do.”

  “And you’re good, too. You got a strong feel for it. Now get some sleep, honey. It won’t do you any good worryin’ about anybody. I’ll wake you if I smell somethin’ cookin’. We get to Texarkana we’ll get you dinner before we see that boy about the job.”

  “I want to see that fancy hotel,” she said. “Want to forget about today—just plain erase it from my thinkin’. Momma says they serve split pea soup in a silver-plated bowl. That’s what she read in a magazine.” She stared at Clyde, her eyes widening. “You think the folks showed up in Grapevine and seen those laws dead on the ground?”

  Clyde said, “I don’t think folks even showed. I reckon if they got there before anyone else they’d’ve seen what’s there, but I don’t believe they made it.”

  “That makes me sick,” she said. “They’d be thinkin’ we shot those laws.”

  “We had to get outta there,” he said. “We couldn’t sit around—”

  “—I know. I know.”

  “It’s just as well I don’t throw Henry’s ass out,” he said. “Least till we’re fixed up in finances. Just have to see, honey. We get the newspaper over the line and read what’s happened. If the folks did show up the laws’d be jumpin’ on ’em, and I sure don’t relish bein’ named for Henry’s stupidity. I can’t think of anybody who saw us there, our folks bein’ the only ones knowin’ we were gonna be there. I don’t think Joe got word to them of the meetin’ plan.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Them bein’ late and knowin’ the law’s on Joe’s ass—he might not even’ve got across the river.”

  “Won’t make any difference,” she said, striking a match and holding it to a cigarette. “You want one?” He shook his head. She said, “They’ll make us the guilty parties anyway. You and I’ve got no proof we didn’t do it.”

  “Well, you’re right.…” Clyde said. “Technically, you’re right, as they got me zeroed in whether I shot ’em or the whole state of Texas did
it.” He looked at Bonnie as she drew on her cigarette. “But you—” he said, “it’s different with you, honey. You shootin’ bean cans and soda pop bottles doesn’t elect you the way they’ve got me nailed. You could sit in that fancy hotel with a silver soup bowl and nobody’d bother you—”

  “—that’s not true,” she said. “Nobody payin’ attention to me? I sit there long enough, the laws’ll be jumpin’ all over me—”

  “’Cause they want you tellin’ them where I’m at. But you know the story to tell ’em. You sayin’ I wouldn’t let you go. Holdin’ you a prisoner—gonna shoot your momma if you run off.”

  “That worked for those hicks, but truth is I can’t go even if you’d be wantin’ me to. I’d just die where I was—even where I am. We don’t know when it’ll happen, do we? I only know in my heart it’s gonna happen and we’ve got no say in it. Maybe even it’ll happen in Texarkana—”

  “Aw, don’t say that, honey. Makes no difference where it happens. Only what matters is you and us bein’ like we are. Get enough finances and maybe see where we go. Last night I was dreamin’ about this bank—money on the walls like stacked in kinda shelves for a bunch of pigeons or hens.” He shook his head. “I woke up this mornin’ thinkin’ there’s nothin’ more hateful than these damn banks, and half these people we’re seein’ eatin’ grass or a hard old bun and some lard—”

  “—or like Charlie Chaplin eatin’ his shoe,” she said, laughing a little. “Remember seein’ that downtown? You held my hand all through the picture show and told me I smelled like a bush of jasmine.”