by Emma Parker
After three hours of this terrible drive, they met Blanche and Buck outside of Erick. Here W. D. took barbed wire from a fence, and he and Clyde tied the two officers, whose names were Corry and Hardy, to an oak tree. Buck came over and watched the proceedings. Blanche was already in the car trying to make Bonnie more comfortable. "Are you going to kill 'em, Clyde?" Buck asked.
Clyde grinned wryly through the soot and grime on his blistered face. "No," he said. "I've had them with me so long I'm beginning to like them." The truth of the business was that the officer in the back seat had held Bonnie so tenderly and so carefully that Clyde said he was almost ready to kiss him for it. But Corry and Hardy knew that they had been kidnapped by the desperate gunman, Clyde Barrow, and it would never do to have them go back to the world with the story of a big softy who had got maudlin with two laws.
They drove away, leaving the officers, who freed themselves within thirty minutes, and telephoned Wellington. The scent was strong now, and fresh; the hunt was on again in earnest. Everybody knew that Bonnie was horribly, perhaps fatally burned. Tracing them was going to be as easy as picking out a red dress in a daisy field. But it wasn't.
Why they didn't discover them is still something 1 can't understand, for Clyde's usual cleverness deserted him. He became like an insane man. He had only one thought: Bonnie. She was unconscious most of the time now, but apparently in great pain. Her burns had never been dressed and it was imperative that they be attended at once if she were to live. Throwing caution to the winds, Clyde took the wheel of Buck's car and never slackened his pace of sixty miles an hour till they sighted Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Here he rented a double cabin, explaining to the manager that his wife had just been badly burned by an oil stove explosion at their camp site. He sent boldly into town for a physician, and when the doctor arrived, examined Bonnie, and announced that she must either go immediately to a hospital or have a nurse, Clyde got the nurse. He'd have hired a dozen nurses.
He never left her bedside, day or night, for a week, but sat beside her, holding her hand, talking to her, pleading with her to live, putting pillows to ease her, trying to get her to take nourishment, lifting her up and down as if she were a baby. Bonnie in her delirium called again and again for her mother, begging and pleading for her till Clyde nearly went crazy. Finally the doctor said one morning: "You'd better send for this girl's mother, if she wants her. Otherwise, she'll probably never see her daughter alive."
Clyde asked for another doctor and there was a consultation. Neither physician held out much hope. Clyde made up his mind then. He came to Texas openly and alone, making no effort at concealment. He left Ft. Smith at noon on Sunday, June 19, nine days after the Wellington accident, and driving like lightning over those hundreds of miles, he arrived in Dallas at 8 o'clock that same evening, and told the horrified Mrs. Parker the condition that Bonnie was in. Both Mrs. Parker and Clyde's mother immediately made ready to return with him, but Clyde refused to take them. "I'll take Billie," he said, "but not you two. Don't you realize the cops are watching your every move? Don't you know they'd follow you and find us? No, I'll take Billie."
Billie was at a picture show and they had to wait till she came in, which was around eleven o'clock. During those three hours, the two mothers used every known persuasion to get Clyde to change his mind, but without success. "They'd jail you if they caught you," he said. "I've got plenty on my head already, but I'll never have it said that I was the cause of getting my own mother or Bonnie's mother in trouble. Maybe Billie and I can get out of town without being caught, and if Bonnie's got to die, she'll have her sister with her. But she can't die — Oh, God, she can't die — she can't — she can't!"
Then Clyde Barrow, "the toughest egg since Jesse James," Clyde Barrow, the desperado who had already killed three men, broke down and sobbed like a little boy. It broke our hearts to hear him. Bonnie's horrible plight broke our hearts. No matter what he had done, he was ours and we loved him, and how could we fail to love the girl who had cast her lot with his for better or for worse, knowing all the while that it could never be better, and who now lay at death's door in a tourist camp, begging for her mother who dared not go to her?
Clyde and Billie left at midnight. By daybreak they were back in Ft. Smith, but Bonnie didn't recognize her sister for days. She had a high fever, was delirious, and unable to sleep or rest except under the influence of opiates. Billie stayed with her constantly. She told us that during the seven days she was there, Clyde never left Bonnie's bedside for longer than five minutes at a time.
Funds were beginning to get very low, for doctor's fees were cash and so were nurses' wages. Medicine to dress Bonnie's burns cost as much as $5 for one day'* dressing. Bonnie would insist on the bandages being changed half a dozen times a day, hoping vainly that the changing would bring relief. She recognized Billie on the third day, and after that, began to improve slowly. It was seven months before she was able to walk normally again, despite the many newspaper stories which had her running everywhere with Clyde in just a few weeks. Many, many weeks Bonnie never moved from the back seat of the car without being lifted out, and it seemed that no sooner would the leg begin to heal than something else would happen to tear the wound open again. In September, 1933, which was the next time we saw them, Bonnie still walked with the aid of crutches, and had to be helped in and out of the car.
Billie stayed with Bonnie from Monday, June 20, till the following Sunday, June 26. Because of the low state of their finances, which Clyde wasn't bothering about, Buck and W.D. went out to get some funds. Police credited them with robbing the Alma Bank on June 22, and taking $3,600. The hold-up sounded like Clyde, all right, because it was so daring. Two bandits kidnapped the newly elected Marshal of Alma, Mr. Humphrey, carried him inside the bank and tied him to a pillar. Then, holding the employees off with guns, they trundled the safe out on the sidewalk and loaded it into a truck, where they headed for the Ozarks, presumably. Both Buck and W. D. insisted that they did not do this hold-up, and it seems likely that they told the truth. If they got over $3,000 on the 22nd, it doesn't seem rational that the next day they would stick up two Piggly-Wiggly stores in Fayetteville for a paltry few hundred. The Alma haul, if Buck and W. D. had made it, would have been ample for them to have lived on for several months, and with Bonnie so badly hurt, all they wanted was enough to get along till able to travel again.
Billie said their funds were so low when it came time for her to go home that they did not have enough money to buy her a ticket on the train without leaving them flat. They brought her down to Sherman and put her aboard the train there. It doesn't seem logical that they would have come back into Texas — all of them crowded into one car and Bonnie still so sick — unless they had been forced to do so. With over $3,000 in their pockets, they could have afforded to send Billie home much easier and with less worry to them all.
They did stick up the Piggly-Wiggly stores in Fayetteville on the 23rd, and on this occasion their car number and their descriptions were broadcast; also the fact that they were headed toward Alma, fifty miles away. The outraged and humiliated Marshal Humphrey heard the descriptions and decided that this was the pair who had tied him up the day before while they lifted the Alma Bank safe, so he took his car, and with a deputy named Salyars accompanying him, started out on the highway to head the bandits off.
Driving along the road, a friend named Wilson sighted them. Wilson was coming from the opposite direction, and he started to draw up for a chat, but Humphrey saw another car tearing down the highway behind Wilson and yelled at the man to keep going or pull over else he would be wrecked. Humphrey speeded up, but not in time. The oncoming car crashed into Wilson, and automobile parts were scattered all over the highway. Wilson was not hurt but he was pretty mad. He climbed out of the wreck, picked up two rocks and started at Buck and W. D.; Humphrey was about a hundred yards away and couldn't see what was going on in Buck's car. He did see Wilson stop suddenly, let out a yell of terror, and start running the other way as fast as h
e could. He never came back.
Rather amazed at this peculiar conduct on the part of his friend, Humphrey alighted and started back to investigate. Perhaps the occupants of the other wrecked car were seriously injured. Coming closer, he recognized the license number, whipped out his gun and yelled, "Throw up your hands!"
Both Buck and W. D. came out of their car shooting, the open doors on either side serving as a shield. Buck had a forty-one; W. D. a Browning automatic. Buck's fire went wild, but W. D. was a better shot. Humphrey fell, a hole in his chest, and Salyars was left alone to face the two of them. The deputy's own account of this fight states that the shot from the forty-one went over his head, but that the man with the shotgun had better aim and he thought he was done for till he heard a harmless click and realized the gun was empty. W. D. reached inside for another gun just as Salyars fired, but the deputy's gun was also empty. Salyars ran and no one can blame him. Reloading as he scurried out of danger behind a barn, Salyars took up the fight again, but without success.
Buck and W. D. saw their chance and ran for Humphrey's car, which was the only one left that would go. Once safe in the car, they speeded down the highway. Seven miles down the highway, Humphrey's car blew a tire. The two boys took a car from a passing motorist, and drove on into the hills near Winslow. Officers were jubilant when they heard this. They had the outlaws trapped at last, for they had followed a blind road into the hills. The stolen car, deserted a few miles further on, made them sure that the bandits would soon be captured. Posses poured into the mountains, looking for them. The trail seemed hot when they came upon a Mrs. Rogers, who stated that two men had beaten her with trace chains because she wouldn't give them the keys to her car. Buck told us she gave them the keys without any trouble, but that in trying to back the car down out of the trees, they ran it against one and ruined it. They went on afoot.
All night long men with guns and torches scoured the hills looking for Buck and W. D., who had calmly dropped back to the highway and caught a ride to town with an unsuspecting farmer, taking vegetables into Ft. Smith. Back at the tourist camp, Buck and W. D. said they had a wreck on the highway and ruined their car. That's all that Billie learned, though they must have acquainted Clyde with the whole affair. They wanted to leave the camp that night, Billie said, because the law was likely to come to check up about the wreck, but Clyde refused to go, saying that Bonnie was not yet able to travel. However, the next night they did prepare to leave. There was a great deal of stir about the murder of the Alma Marshal, and I'm sure that Clyde knew by now just what had happened. To remain longer meant serious danger for them all, but more especially for Billie, who would be implicated if they were caught.
The six of them now had only one car, a turtle back, and there was no time to get another. Clyde had Billie get in the front seat, then he lifted Bonnie up into her lap. Blanche was concealed in the turtle back with some bedding. W.D. and Buck were left at the camp to complete the packing, while Clyde took the girls up into the hills to a secluded spot. Here Billie made as good a bed as she could for her sister while Clyde drove back to the tourist camp and picked up the other two boys. When they were all together again, Clyde told Billie to get her things ready, for he was taking her back to Dallas. The trail was too hot and the danger too great. He dared not let her stay any longer. He took W. D. with him in the turtle back and went looking for another car. They found one in Enid, Oklahoma, a doctor's car, and it had a complete medical kit in it which was to come in handy later. They abandoned the turtle back. Billie told us they had three blowouts on the way from the tourist camp to the hills on the first trip. Fixing a blowout with the knowledge that bullets may start singing over your head just any minute is rather a nerve racking business.
Sunday night, June 26, Clyde, Buck, Blanche, Billie and W. D. left the mountain hide-out and started for Dallas. At Sherman they gave Billie her train fare and left her. They headed back toward Kansas where they rented a tourist camp at Great Bend, and settled down to wait for Bonnie to get well. Clyde was the only doctor Bonnie had now, and she said that he was as gentle and tender as a woman, dressing her burns as often as she demanded. She was getting better, and as convalescents are prone to do, crosser and more exacting. They lived quietly. Clyde was more worried about Bonnie's condition than the condition of their finances, letting W. D. and Buck attend to those matters. Proceeds from the robberies were small, and only enough to live on. They also ranged in a wide circle in order not to attract the law to their hiding place. Our letters from them bore postmarks from all over Kansas, Iowa, and Illinois, for Buck would mail them when he and W. D. were "out."
The reader can easily understand the state of mind we were in, especially Bonnie's mother. We knew that Bonnie was still badly hurt and should have the best of medical attention. Fear of blood poison or tetanus was constantly in our minds. We also knew that they were liable to be "jumped" any day and all killed.
It was a terrible month, during which we could only hope and pray.
The attitude of local police did nothing to soothe Mrs. Parker's mind of worries. They came to her, soon after the Wellington accident, and said: "They'll find your daughter on some lonely road now with a bullet through her head. A man as hard, as cruel, and as heartless as Clyde Barrow is, will never put up with a wounded girl who is a dead give-away and a burden to him. You'll see."
The officers were wrong in their estimate of these hunted people. Many of the things they said of Clyde were true; but he had his code of love and loyalty. Bonnie had placed her life in his hands; she had thrown her lot with his till the end should come; she loved him as devotedly, as passionately, and as blindly as any woman ever loved a man. She had proved it again and again.
Where Bonnie was concerned, Clyde was as gentle as a baby, as tender as a mother. He once deserted her at Kaufman, before the trials of the trail had shown him her great love, but during those last two years Clyde would have died a thousand deaths rather than to have hurt Bonnie. He himself said to Mrs. Parker a few weeks before they were killed: "I'd give my life if I could bring Bonnie back to you just as I took her from you — young and carefree, and without a price on her head."
About the middle of July Bonnie was able to travel, but she could not walk, and had to be lifted from the back seat at every stop. Her leg was drawn up under her from a burned ligament, and it didn't look as if it would ever be straight again. They drove to Ft. Dodge, Iowa, on July 18th, and robbed three filling stations. Bonnie, still in the car with bandages on her face and arms, was with them for the first time, and through her they were identified. A few days prior to that a farmer found a camp site in the woods with bandages covered with blood, so it was reasonably certain that Clyde and Bonnie were back on the trail again.
With officers everywhere looking for them, and their pictures glaring from every newspaper and bill board, it is amazing that they would dare to rent a tourist camp in this region. That is what they did. Immediately following the Ft. Dodge holdups they arrived at the Red Crown Tourist Camp, six miles out of Platte City, Mo., about 10 o'clock at night, and took a double cabin with a garage between. Newspaper stories stated that Bonnie rented the camp and was identified by her bandages. Blanche rented the cabin, but Bonnie's name made a better story.
Blanche went out that night and bought five suppers and five bottles of beer, which she took to the cabins. Bonnie was also credited with this. Not that it matters in the final estimate, for Bonnie had done and was to do many things worse than renting tourist cabins and buying suppers for outlaws. I'm simply telling what really happened. The fact that Blanche had red hair, and that she paid for her purchases in small change, plus the tightly drawn curtains in both cabins, aroused suspicion. There was a secretive air about the whole crowd. The men stayed shut in and did not show themselves.
Bonnie had to have more medicine for her burns and Clyde said that he would get it. They were all travelling in one car. Clyde didn't want to lessen the chances of their get-away while he was gone by
taking the car. He got out on the highway and hitch-hiked into Platte City to a drug store where he bought bandages and medicine. It was getting dusk. He bought some papers and hitch-hiked back to the Red Crown, generally known around Platte City as "The Junction." Blanche brought in the suppers, they ate, Clyde dressed Bonnie's burns, and they went to bed. It was still early.
Meanwhile, stories that Clyde and Bonnie were at the Junction were all over town. The Platte City officers were afraid to attempt to take them alone. Clyde's name now was one to strike terror into every policeman's heart, and Buck's was about as bad because of his association with Clyde. Besides, Clyde was considered a sort of modern Fu Manchu, able to appear and disappear at will, leaving death behind. Officers were taking no chances with this gang, and certainly one can't blame them. Stories had asserted that Bonnie was a crack shot, as well as Blanche, and that both girls would enter into gun battles with gusto. Clyde had taught Bonnie to shoot, all right, and she had done some shooting on several occasions, but Blanche had never handled a gun and was still scared to death of them.
Platte City police had no intention of being the central figures in a swell bunch of funerals, so they called the sheriff of Jackson County at Kansas City, and asked for reinforcements. It was ten o'clock before the Jackson County officers arrived with an armored car, some steel shields, and plenty of machine guns. Bonnie had been put to bed and was asleep. Clyde, who always slept lightly, had dozed off. Blanche said she was still awake, but that she could hear Buck snoring softly. I don't know about W. D.
The first intimation that they had of trouble was when the officers pounded on Blanche's cabin and said they wanted to talk to her. W. D. blamed Blanche afterwards for what she did, but I didn't. The girl couldn't help being scared to death. She called out tremulously that they'd have to wait till she dressed. All the time, she said, she was throwing things into the handbag, just why I don't know, unless she thought she'd better pack up for a trip. The officers pounded again and said they wanted to talk to the men. Then Blanche yelled: "They're not here — they're in the other cabin." Buck jumped to his feet at this, and she put her hand over his mouth, but Clyde had already heard. He leaped up fully clothed, opened the door to the garage, flung the guns into the car, and said to W. D. "I'll bring Bonnie — you take the wheel, kid." But again they were trapped by a police car outside on the drive.
