Footsteps thump down the hall. I instinctively look up, peel my damp blouse away from my skin, then concentrate again on the page:
Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.
Feet stop outside my cell. “Betty Thornton. You have a visitor.”
8
My heart leaps, and in that moment, all questions ’bout Clyde’s character dissolve. If he’s willing to pull up a chair in the visitors’ room, he’s willing to risk it all for me.
The gals, not many of them receiving their own guests, shout their encouragement. But when I walk into the room, I stop dead in my tracks.
“Betty Thornton,” Blanche says, standing behind a small table. “Stripes agree with you.”
My cheeks burn, and I can’t seem to get my feet to move. She’s not who I was expecting. She’s not who I want to see me this way.
“It’s okay,” she says. “Remember how I once had intercourse,” she says plainly, then lowers her voice, “in a church? I ain’t one to judge.”
I shake off my disappointment. It only takes a few steps before my arms are ’round her. My eyes sting with tears. I hug Blanche harder.
“Enough of that,” she says. We both sit, and while Blanche’s eyes shine with excitement, like she’s stuck between right and wrong, her back is stiff, like it gives her the heebie-jeebies to actually step foot in a jail. She lowers her voice. “You okay? I’m surprised you ain’t panting with how hot it is in here.”
I nod. I am fine—physically, at least.
“He said they had ya in a calaboose overnight.”
I’m quick to say, “You spoke to him?”
“How else would I know where to find you? He was watching from the trees. Said it took all he had not to open fire on the coppers and townsfolk alike.” She shakes her head, as if unbelieving he’d ever do such a thing. But there’s no denying: Clyde walked into jail a petty thief and limped out a murderer. I shake the thought away.
“Where’s he now? Blanche, I’ve been in here for nearly two months.”
Blanche’s hands are in her lap, not even willing to touch the table. “He’s working on it.” She leans closer, holding her clean blouse against her. “He’s run into some trouble.”
My heart races, ’specially as Blanche is slow to divulge more. “Well, out with it.”
“He got some men together to help him get to you. But they needed things.” She discreetly mimics a gun with her hand and pointer finger.
I widen my eyes. He wasn’t out raiding the prison farm. Clyde has the mind to raid this prison. For me.
“But things went south,” Blanche says. “A job went bad, and the fella behind the counter died.”
“Did Clyde do it?”
“Not Clyde,” she says, and Lord, I’m relieved it wasn’t Clyde. Him taking a life to save his own is one thing, but to shoot an innocent … That’s another. “One of his guys did the killing, but eyes are on him. They made camp by some lake, and the police found it. Took everything.” One of the guards looks over, and Blanche bats her lashes at him. She then takes my hand, whispering, “Everything from Kansas is gone, which, Betty”—she squeezes my hand too tightly—“was a mighty foolish thing to do.”
I close my eyes. The fact our money’s gone is a dagger to my heart, and to our plans. Everything unraveled, quicker than I ever could’ve imagined.
“Bonn,” she whispers. “That ain’t all.” I almost beg her to stop, but I open my eyes.
“His group got picked off.” She dips her head closer to say, “Raymond,” then leans back again, “left. He said too much has gone wrong. I figure him being shot didn’t help, ’specially after he used up all his supply. I didn’t know he was a dopehead, did you? Anyway, now he says he doesn’t care ’bout no cons or no farm. Though he was kind enough to find Lillian’s place for me in Wilmer.”
I let out a long exhale through my nose, not caring where Blanche’s ma lives.
“Right,” she says. “After all that, Raymond poofed, probably before you-know-who could throttle his neck.”
I shake my head. Raymond double-crossed Clyde. We helped him, but now he’s abandoning Clyde. And me. Probably so he can go find his next fix.
But Clyde never abandoned me. Clyde’s been working for me this whole time. A man died while he tried to get to me. I ask, “Where’s he now?”
“Won’t tell me. After his original plan went to hell, he came and got me, all sweaty and panicky. Didn’t want you thinking he up and left. But he won’t tell me where he is. Just said to tell you that he’s coming soon.” She shakes her head. “I told him to let you be. They’ve got nothin’ on you, and you’ll be out soon enough. I don’t see the point in him getting caught, you getting more time. How am I supposed to explain that to Buck when he gets out? All I want is the four of us together again, Bonn. Is that so much to ask?” She shakes her head again, then keeps on hearing her own voice as she says, “But that boy of yours is stubborn and insists you being in here even another second is too long. He said to keep your wits ’bout you.”
I could do that. I could also stay on my feet.
* * *
The guard’s keys jangle outside my cell. He doesn’t have to tell me to get on my feet. I’m already there.
“This way, Betty Thornton. It’s your lucky day.”
As we walk down a hall, I got ears like a dog, eyes like a hawk, nose like a shark—all keen to whatever Clyde has planned.
I’m giddy with excitement, and I try not to let my smile show.
I’m given a chance to change back into my clothes—laundered, no more mud—and given a bag for the few items I’ve acquired: cigarettes, paper, a pen. Then, I’m taken to a desk, riddled with stacks of folders. An overweight man sits behind it, a mustard stain on his uniform. “This her?”
The guard escorting me nods. I look ’round, expecting to see Clyde or at least someone I recognize. But I don’t see a soul.
“Well, Ms. Thornton. It’s your lucky day.” So I’ve heard. I keep my expression neutral. “It appears we don’t have enough to keep you any longer.” That neutral expression is even harder to maintain, given the length of time they’ve already kept me. “People saw ya with those fellas,” he says, “but can’t say for certain if you were or weren’t in cahoots with ’em. Unless you want to finally answer that one for us?”
“No, sir.”
That’s what saved me. I didn’t do the robbing, I didn’t ride my own mule, and I didn’t fire any shots. I’ve got three for three in my favor, and that must’ve been enough for them to let me go. I thought Clyde’s fingerprints were all over my release, but they aren’t. He’s not the reason I’m standing here.
“Very well, Ms. Thornton.” The chubby man taps his fingers on a folder. “But we’ll be keeping an eye out for ya. You, being a pretty li’l thing, won’t be hard to miss. You hear?”
I’m disgusted, that’s what I am, but I heard him. I nod, doing my best to train my features into a sorrowful expression, my lips slightly pouting.
“There’s a bus stop ’bout half a mile down the road.” He puts a few bills in my hand. “We suggest you get on that bus, alone.”
I offer ’em a tight-lipped smile, then step outside, where it’s ’bout ten degrees cooler, and that’s saying something since it’s ’round ninety out here. Texas is showing its true colors. What it ain’t showing is Clyde. Or anybody else, for that matter. There’s just a field and a whole bunch of trees on either side of a long dirt road.
I start walking.
The sun beats down on me. The whole time it’s like I’m chasing my shadow. But no matter how fast I walk, no matter how far I leap, my shadow always stays ahead of me. I sigh; of course now’s the time the good Lord throws a metaphor at me, making me question: If I stay with Clyde, will I only ever be chasing our dreams?
The bus-stop sign and a rickety bench come into view, almost like a mirage, twinkling in the sunlight. At the stop
, I sit, letting it all sink in. Clyde isn’t here. I’ve got enough money for this bus. Nothin’ more. My future ain’t looking grand.
I think it again: I could go home.
I cup my eyes, shielding ’em from the sun, and peer down the road. There’s no sign of the bus, or Clyde.
Even if he is coming for me, that’ll mean scrambling to survive. Getting enough for the farm won’t come easy. My head falls back, and I let out a guttural noise, still in dismay how I got here.
From my bag, I pull out my sheaf of paper and tap my pen against it, hoping my thoughts will finally come pouring out. It’s a sad truth; life’s been giving me plenty to work with. In fact …
Sometimes, life’s got a fork in the road, with two ways to go.
The good Lord says: Girl, go on, take the straight and narrow home.
It’s as if the good Lord chose that exact moment to send the bus my way. Within another few heartbeats, it stops in front of me. The door opens, and my heart thumps some more. A trail of sweat slips down my spine.
The driver leans down, making eye contact with me. “You coming?”
I gulp in the humid air, and another line forms in my head, as if the words are out of my control. I got to get it down on paper, right now.
But her heart, it beat, beat, beats for a fella with a different path to sow.
“Miss?” the driver prods. “I ain’t got all day. You getting on?”
I lick my lips and, Lord help me, I shake my head. The driver shrugs. The door closes. And it’s just me again. It’s both horrifying and exhilarating, but I know it. I know …
He’s coming for her, off they’ll go, a new life to build and roam.
They’ll take life one day at a time, always an eye on the road.
Ohh, oh, oh, oh, their story will be the best the good Lord’s ever told.
I smile, not realizing ’til I was done, I just wrote the third verse in our song. And I believe every word, ’cause when I’m with Clyde, having air in my lungs is enough.
That boy is coming for me.
9
A rumbling noise approaches. A car, going faster than it should. The brakes screech. Through the dust, the door flies open.
Clyde nearly falls out. I stand from the bench, my heart leaping. He runs toward me, favoring his good foot. In front of me, he drops to his knees and rests his forehead against my belly. Wetness from my dress, soaked with sweat, presses against my skin.
“Forgive me, Bonnie.”
His voice is muffled.
I slide my fingers into his damp hair. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Clyde tilts his head back, one eye squinting against the sun. “You are. I’m so sorry they got their hands on you. I thought you were right behind me.”
“Well, I wasn’t.” And I spent nearly two months behind bars. I lick my lips. “But here I am, right in front of ya.”
He drops his head again, his voice too hoarse to make out. My eye catches on the USN tattoo peeking out from his shirtsleeve. Clyde stands, putting our faces in near alignment. I’ve always liked that it only took a slight roll onto my toes to see Clyde Barrow eye-to-eye.
“Let me get a look at you,” he says.
Clyde runs his hands up and down my arm. His thumb caresses my cheek. Each touch is like dipping into a cool lake on a hot day, raising goose bumps on my skin.
“They didn’t hurt me, Clyde. Didn’t lay a finger on me.”
He nods, and it’s as if Clyde joins me in that lake, the tightness of his jaw easing. Darkness lingers behind his eyes, though.
He says, “I take it you enjoyed seeing Blanche?”
I smile. “That girl can brighten a cave. She wasn’t too keen on you breaking me out. She’ll be happy you didn’t bust in with guns blazing.”
I say it lightly. We need light. But I’m relieved more shots weren’t fired.
He taps his temple. “That’d be an insult to my abilities.”
Yet, I think, one of Clyde’s men killed a man.
“As of ten minutes ago,” Clyde says, going on, not sensing my unease, “you’re looking at the son of the Honorable Thomas Bradford, mayor of Dallas.”
I scrunch my brows, intrigued. “Am I, now?”
“That reaction of yours has already outdone those small-town folk. They didn’t want to insult my father by second-guessing I was who I said I was. Didn’t even ask for identification. Then they lapped up what I had to say like a kitten with a saucer of milk.”
“Which is what, Mr. Bradford?”
“Oh, the other day I was passing through their town—one I said I’d report back to my father as being quite charming—and I saw this young woman in the company of two young men. She seemed to be in duress. The hair was raised enough on my arms that guilt set in that I didn’t do more, so I thought to check up on her. Imagine my surprise when I found out she’d been put behind bars without any real evidence against her. I insisted that anything she may’ve done was against her will. Coercion, you see. I was sure my father would agree.”
“I like it when you use that head of yours.” I run my hand down Clyde’s tie, letting my pointer finger slowly trail behind. I’m encouraged when he doesn’t stiffen, like he would before he revealed his secret. “I’m going to have to find the proper way to thank this Thomas fella.”
Clyde chuckles. “I may know where you can find the lad. Though I think he’s going to be hiding out for a bit.”
My hand goes still. “Are we talking ’bout you now?”
“Afraid so. Funny thing, when I turned ’round to leave the precinct—”
“You went inside the jail?”
“Of course, how else was I going to talk with them? When I was done, I turned and almost walked right into myself. Clyde, that is. Not Thomas.” He pulls a paper from his pocket, folded up into a smaller square. Unfolded, the left side of the paper is devoted to Raymond, with two photos of him. In one, he stares straight into the camera. In the other, he’s turned to the side. The right side of the paper has Clyde in the same positions.
He’s been fingered for the bank robbery. Clyde’s a wanted man, even outside of Dallas. Yet the scariest thing is how, ’cross the top of the poster, it reads $250 REWARD.
That could get someone over a year of rent at a nice place.
That could get someone thousands and thousands of loaves of bread to feed their family.
That could get someone a lot.
It feels like the earth is moving right under my feet, even though the last time an earthquake struck Texas was nearly ten years ago, all the way over in El Paso. It ain’t nothin’ new for coppers to have it out for Clyde. But with this poster, anybody could.
Lord help me, I can’t shake another thought. After Clyde escaped prison, the manhunt lasted only two weeks. It only took two weeks before the law caught up with him, and that was over in Ohio, a thousand miles away.
Has the countdown begun again? Do we only got ourselves fourteen more days to be free, to be Bonnie and Clyde? Out here on the road, with miles and miles of openness ’round us, we’re exposed. Are there folks looking for Clyde right now? Since leaving Dallas, that ain’t a feeling I’ve had. Like I told my ma, Dallas was happy to get rid of us. But now, I ask Clyde, “How’re we going to evade the law?”
He rests his forehead against mine. “I got to say, I like that you said we, Bonnie. You could leave. You could’ve left a few times by now.”
I wrote in my verse how I had the option to take the straight and narrow. But it’s true my heart beats for a fella with a different path to sow. I meet his eyes. “Would you quit trying to shake me? I want the farm, too, whatever it takes. But Clyde?” I let my next sentence work its way ’round my mouth before saying, “I’ll admit fear’s got me, with all those eyes looking for you. Your track record ain’t too great.”
Clyde lets out a belly laugh, catching me by surprise. He kisses the tip of my nose. “Two weeks shouldn’t be too hard to beat.”
* * *
“Fi
rst thing’s first,” Clyde says. “We got to dress the part.” We pass a store that sells furniture, coffins, and stoves—all under the same roof. “I reckon part of my mistake before was that I looked like I just escaped from prison. But you and me, Bonnie, we’ll play the part of a young couple off exploring the country.”
Honeymooning. I smile at that. We park outside of a drugstore, and I cock my head. “Am I to decorate myself in bandages and bottles?”
“No, I’m to rob it. We need us some money for our new life, wouldn’t you say?”
I’m itchy again. “I’d say, last time you robbed, I ended up in jail.”
Clyde shrugs. “Fine, we won’t rob. We won’t have money to eat, no money for gas. Well, we may have enough gas for me to get you back to Dallas.”
I let out a long breath. “Don’t be an ass.”
“What? I’ll bring you back, but I ain’t staying there. It’ll sting like a hornet to drive away from you, though.”
“You done?”
He’s got the nerve to laugh at me.
I say, “I’m being serious. Robbing is what got us into this mess. In fact”—my voice grows louder—“it all dates back to you stealing those turkeys.”
“Bonnie, darling, are you really bringing up something from when I was fifteen?” Clyde scratches his brow. “Or maybe I was sixteen, can’t remember. But that was all Buck’s doing. It was his idea to steal ’em and sell ’em for a profit. We made us some clams that day.”
“Then you got arrested.”
“Water under the bridge, no? Here we are. And unless you got a better idea of how to save for the farm…”
I don’t. But it feels wrong to save by stealing. Feels dangerous, too.
“Don’t look so worried, Bonnie, I’ve got a trick up my sleeve for the drugstore.” He pulls out a ten-dollar bill.
My jaw drops. That’s more than some people make in a week, and Clyde’s got it all in one bill. “Where’d you get that from?”
“The po-lice may’ve found our stash, but I had this one on me. Now watch,” he says. “The owner will need to open his safe for me.”
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