Clyde was still the boss, which irritated Raymond but didn’t bother Joe Palmer or Henry Methvin. Hilton Bybee didn’t care one way or the other. As soon as he had his cut of the Rembrandt take, he left the gang for good. Bybee wasn’t interested in running with Clyde, though he would have been better off staying with him. One week after striking out on his own, Bybee was recaptured near Amarillo and returned to prison.
On January 26, just three days after their successful robbery in Iowa, the gang hit another bank in the northeast Oklahoma town of Poteau. This heist went smoothly, too. Three men—probably Raymond, Henry, and Palmer—went into the Central National Bank, forced a cashier and some customers to sit on the floor, grabbed $1,500, and hustled out to a black Plymouth sedan waiting nearby. The Plymouth roared away on Highway 271, with Clyde at the wheel. It was a clean getaway.
With healthy finances for a change, the five-member gang could attend to matters other than robbery. Joe Palmer had business back in Texas, and Clyde drove everyone there. On the way, there was trouble between Palmer and Raymond. The two never liked each other—their partnership in the Eastham breakout had been based on convenience rather than friendship. Palmer, at thirty-one much older than the rest of the gang, thought twenty-year-old Raymond bragged too much, and suspected him of acting as an informant to the guards while he was on the prison farm. Raymond considered the constantly ill Palmer to be an unnecessary burden. He’d been too sick to participate in the Rembrandt robbery, and they even had to frequently pull over to the side of the road when Palmer became carsick. Why should Palmer be allowed to stay in the gang and get an equal share of all the stolen money? Raymond kept saying as much, and finally on the ride from Iowa to Texas Palmer had enough. He called Raymond a “punk blabbermouth braggart” in front of Clyde, Bonnie, and Henry Methvin, and accused him of being a prison snitch. Raymond was furious, but he was also afraid of Palmer. In Eastham, sick as he constantly was, Palmer still had a well-deserved reputation as a fighter. So Raymond waited until later in the ride, when Palmer fell asleep in the car. Raymond drew his pistol and pointed it at Palmer. Clyde, driving too fast as usual, took a hand off the wheel. He reached back, slapped Raymond and ordered him to put the gun away. It was a brave thing to do—Raymond didn’t like Clyde either, and might have turned the gun on him instead. But Raymond complied, perhaps because in twisting to hit him Clyde lost control of the car and ran it into a ditch. Palmer woke up, discovered what had happened, and realized it wasn’t safe for him to remain a full-time member of the gang. But before he left, Palmer wanted to go to San Antonio and then Houston. The San Antonio stop appealed to Clyde’s sensitive side. After Palmer had been convicted of robbery and sent to prison, most of his family disowned him. But Palmer’s sister Faye, who lived in San Antonio, remained loyal to him. Now Palmer wanted to see her. During his previous civilian days Palmer usually wore overalls and work shirts, but he arrived at Faye’s home in a fancy new suit. He explained that Clyde insisted all the gang members dress up—they had a fashionable image to uphold. Brother and sister had a happy reunion in the San Antonio rock gardens. They posed for several pictures. Bonnie probably snapped them. She was often the gang’s designated photographer.
Then Palmer wanted to go to Houston, and his sinister errand there also struck a chord with Clyde. While Palmer served his time on Eastham Prison Farm, he’d been abused by building tender Wade McNabb. McNabb frequently beat Palmer when he was too sick to take part in work details. Now Palmer wanted to get even, and Clyde empathized. He’d been repeatedly raped by Ed Crowder, whom he’d subsequently murdered in a prison dormitory shower area. No one knows the details, but apparently in Houston Joe Palmer contacted an attorney he knew and paid him to arrange for Wade McNabb to be offered a prison furlough. These were sometimes granted to convicts who cooperated with prison administrators. A furlough would allow a trusted prisoner to leave for thirty or sixty days, then return on his own recognizance. Whenever McNabb left Eastham, Joe Palmer planned to find and kill him.
After his meeting in Houston, Palmer was ready for a temporary break from the gang. About January 30, Clyde dropped him off in Joplin, Missouri. They agreed to rendezvous there in about a month. Clyde, Bonnie, Raymond and, Henry Methvin stayed together, and on Thursday, February 1, the Barrow Gang staged its third bank holdup in nine days. Things didn’t go quite as smoothly at the State Savings Bank in Knierim, Iowa, about seventy miles southeast of Rembrandt. There was only $272 in the cash drawer, though Clyde and Raymond—both subsequently identified by witnesses from mug shots—also relieved customer Chris George of $35. As the thieves ran for their car, cashier Albert Arenson snatched up a pistol and fired at them. He missed.
Afterward the gang traveled to Bienville Parish in Louisiana so Henry Methvin could see his family. They stayed a few days, spending each night in their car out in the countryside, then left for Missouri. On February 12 they stole a car in Springfield. Local cops chased them out of town and Clyde got lost. Near the village of Reeds Spring the gang passed Joe Gunn, who was walking to a grocery store. They forced him at gunpoint to climb in the car, telling Gunn that they wanted him to guide them out of Missouri and into Arkansas. Apparently Clyde didn’t have one of his beloved Rand McNally road maps handy. Gunn thought none of the four outlaws seemed nervous, and he was impressed that Bonnie cradled a rifle on her lap. Soon after the gang took Gunn prisoner they came upon a roadblock on the road south of Reeds Spring. Several lawmen had parked their cars across and along the highway. The Barrow Gang and the cops exchanged fire—Gunn told reporters later that the outlaws “showered the car[s] with bullets”—but no one on either side was hit. Then Clyde yanked his stolen vehicle into a sharp U-turn and drove away. Gunn, terrified now, suggested an alternate route to the Missouri-Arkansas border. Along the way they passed another carload of police parked on the side of the road, and the gang fired at them as Clyde drove by. Again, there were no injuries. Not long afterward they arrived in Berryville, Arkansas. Clyde ordered Gunn out of the car and gave him $10. In its story the next day, a local newspaper crowed that “Clyde Barrow and his gang of outlaws, including the cigar-smoking gun-girl Bonnie Parker, paid Stone County a visit on Monday of this week and created considerable excitement in the vicinity of Reeds Spring.” Gunn said that Bonnie cursed a lot, but “they didn’t harm me at all.”
From Arkansas, the gang headed back to Texas. Raymond was dropped off in Amarillo, and the other three went east to Dallas. The Barrow-Parker family gathering on the night of February 13 was by far the happiest since Buck’s death in Iowa the previous summer. Clyde and Bonnie had some of their sparkle back. The successful bank robberies in Rembrandt and Poteau had left them with money to distribute to their relatives again. Getting through the Reeds Spring shootout unscathed further restored Clyde’s confidence. Despite what happened in Platte City and Dexfield Park, he could still outshoot and outdrive the law.
Everyone noticed how much Clyde seemed to like and trust his new sidekick Henry Methvin. The burly twenty-two-year-old—at about five feet nine inches and 170 pounds, he looked even taller and bulkier standing next to short, scrawny Clyde—had been serving a ten-year term at Eastham Prison Farm for assault with intent to murder and car theft. Nicknamed “Tush Hog” by other inmates as a tribute to his toughness, he seemed to be the antithesis of swaggering Raymond Hamilton. Henry didn’t talk much, and was attached to his family back in northeastern Louisiana. Far from resenting Clyde’s leadership, Henry appeared happy to take orders, exactly what Clyde valued in a partner. The rest of the Barrows and Parkers approved of him, too.
Clyde called another family meeting five nights later, and this time Raymond Hamilton attended. He didn’t come alone. Raymond had stopped in Amarillo to pick up a woman. Clyde was always accompanied by Bonnie. Now Raymond would travel with a girlfriend, too. Nobody besides Raymond found anything to like about Mary O’Dare. She was the wife of Raymond’s former partner Gene O’Dare, currently serving a ninety-nine-year prison term afte
r being convicted for the November 1932 holdup of the Carmen State Bank in La Grange. Floyd Hamilton described his brother’s new girlfriend as “a short girl with plenty of curves and a hard face covered by enough makeup to grow a crop.” After her husband went to prison and before she took up with Raymond, Mary supported herself through prostitution, so the chance to run with the infamous Barrow Gang instead must have seemed like a huge step up. She immediately began complaining. The gang members still slept in cars in backcountry camps, but sometimes they treated themselves to nice meals ordered from, but not eaten in, restaurants. Their routine was for one person to go inside and order several dinners to go. Then they’d drive around until the food was ready, pick it up and return to their camp, where they could eat without fear of being recognized. That wasn’t good enough for Mary. She wanted to eat in the restaurants and afterward be taken to nightclubs for drinking and dancing, the kind of high life she expected as the newest member of one of America’s most famous criminal gangs. Clyde and Bonnie refused and Raymond took Mary’s side. Mary’s carping ratcheted up the tension between Clyde and Raymond even more.
But Clyde didn’t tell Raymond to take Mary and leave. Despite the problems caused by his demanding girlfriend, Raymond was clearly an asset to the gang. Bank robberies went smoothly when he took part in them, and the income from those jobs far exceeded what Clyde made hitting grocery stores and service stations. Because of her injuries, Bonnie would never be an active participant again, and although he was tough and willing to do whatever he was told, Henry Methvin was still green when it came to a full-time career in crime. So Clyde and Bonnie did their best to put up with Mary O’Dare. They called her “the Washerwoman” behind her back, and, because they believed she’d gladly sell out the gang to the law, Bonnie made it a nonnegotiable rule that Mary had to stay with her whenever the men were out on a job.
The next Barrow Gang theft involved ordnance rather than money. On February 20, they broke into the state armory in Ranger, Texas, and stole four BARs, thirteen Colt .45 handguns, and large quantities of ammunition. Well armed again, they prepared to rob their next bank.
On the morning of February 27, Bonnie and Mary O’Dare waited in a Ford V-8 sedan outside the Dallas suburb of Lancaster while Clyde, Raymond, and Henry drove into town in a Chevrolet. The three men walked into the R. P. Henry and Sons Bank and ordered the cashier and several customers to lie down on the floor. Laborer Ollie Worley, who’d just cashed his $27 paycheck, clutched his hard-earned currency as he followed the thieves’ instructions. Worley had time to notice how well dressed all three were before one of them snatched the money from his hand. The other two took all the currency from the cash drawers and forced the cashier to open the vault. They stuffed the money stored there into a sack and turned to leave. Then the man who’d taken the $27 walked back to where Worley lay on the floor. Afterward, Worley identified him as Clyde Barrow after looking at mug shots provided by the Dallas police. Clyde asked, “You worked like hell for this, didn’t you?,” and Worley replied, “Yes sir, digging ditches.” Clyde stuffed the money back into Worley’s hand, saying, “We don’t want your money, just the bank’s.” Then he, Raymond, and Henry hurried out to their car. They rejoined Bonnie and Mary O’Dare in the country, abandoned the Chevrolet, piled into the Ford V-8, and headed north. The take from the robbery was, by Barrow Gang standards, spectacular—$4,176, plenty to keep them going for a while.
Ready for another break, they drove to Terre Haute, Indiana, but there was trouble on the way. Clyde was at the wheel, and Bonnie and Henry Methvin sat in front with him. Raymond and Mary O’Dare were in the back seat. At some point, Raymond suggested that they divide the loot, which was fine with Clyde. The bag with the money was in the back with Raymond and Mary. Clyde told Raymond to divide the money equally, but there would be no share for Mary O’Dare.
Raymond didn’t agree. If Bonnie, who hadn’t done anything more than wait out in the country while the robbery took place, got a full share, then he thought Mary should, too. Clyde refused, and ordered Raymond to split the money as instructed. Raymond pretended to comply, but Clyde, using the rearview mirror to sneak glances into the back seat, saw Raymond surreptitiously stuffing some bills into his coat. Furious, Clyde stopped the car and ordered Raymond out. He found $600 that Raymond had hidden in one of his pockets, a shocking breach of gang etiquette as Clyde understood it. It was one thing to steal from rich people and their banks. But partners never stole from each other. Clyde took the $600 away from Raymond, and the money from the Lancaster bank was divided between Clyde, Bonnie, Henry, and Raymond after all. Clyde didn’t immediately expel Raymond from the gang, but the protocol breach was significant. During the week that the gang spent in Terre Haute, they bought new clothes and felt safe enough to eat meals in restaurants, but then Raymond and Mary did something even more unforgivable than cheating on a divvy-up.
Clyde and Bonnie still had fights, screaming arguments where he was likely to swear he was taking her back to her mother and she would frequently threaten to shoot him. They always reconciled, usually within a few hours. The bond between Clyde and Bonnie was unbreakable. But when they had a blowup in Terre Haute, Raymond and Mary thought they saw an opportunity to get even with Clyde. Mary took Bonnie aside and told her that she shouldn’t tolerate such terrible treatment. What Bonnie ought to do was to administer knockout drops to Clyde—Mary would be glad to help with that—take all his money, and then leave with Mary and Raymond. The three of them would form a new gang. Bonnie immediately told Clyde what Mary had suggested. It was the final straw. Clyde told Raymond he could only stay if he got rid of Mary, and Raymond refused.
On March 6, Raymond Hamilton and Mary O’Dare stole a car and drove back to Texas. The Barrow Gang was down to three members again. Henry Methvin’s value to Clyde increased substantially with Raymond’s departure. Clyde needed a partner to help with robberies, preferably someone who’d take orders rather than argue about them. Henry unquestioningly accepted Clyde as boss, and he got along well with Bonnie, too. It made sense for Clyde and Bonnie to do whatever they could to keep Henry happy, and there seemed to be one obvious way. Henry was always ready to visit his large family—parents, brothers, sisters-in-law, and innumerable Methvin cousins—in Louisiana. In early March, Clyde and Bonnie took Henry back to Bienville Parish for the second time, probably traveling there directly from Terre Haute. Henry was glad to go home for another visit, but not for the reason that his partners thought.
CHAPTER 26
Hamer on the Trail
Although Frank Hamer was initially reluctant to pursue Clyde and Bonnie, once he accepted the job from Texas prison general manager Lee Simons he began the hunt right away. On February 11 he drove to Dallas in a Ford V-8 chosen because it was the same type of car Clyde routinely stole and drove. Hamer wanted, as much as possible, to simulate the way Clyde and Bonnie traveled.
He started in Dallas, not adjacent West Dallas. The purpose of Hamer’s first stop was to consult with Dallas County sheriff Smoot Schmid, who had the most experience trying to catch the Barrow Gang. Hamer didn’t set foot in West Dallas, even to scout out the Barrow family service station and Clyde’s favorite escape route along Eagle Ford Road. He knew that to do so would immediately result in Clyde learning that Hamer was on his trail. West Dallas denizens always kept a sharp eye out for the cops, and Hamer was the best-known lawman in Texas. It was extremely unlikely that any of the Barrows’ neighbors would help him out with information. Try as he might for over a year, Schmid had been able to develop only one source, who tipped him to the Barrow-Parker family gathering in Sowers on November 22.
But Schmid was a cordial host in his office at the Dallas County jail. He welcomed Hamer and offered to cooperate however he could. The Dallas County sheriff and his deputies had plenty of stories to tell Hamer about their ongoing, frustrating attempts to corner Clyde and Bonnie. They’d seen them several times since Sowers—if anything, their family visits had become more frequ
ent. Clyde’s new strategy of only telling his mother in advance when and where he wanted to meet was working. The Dallas County lawmen were reduced to driving around the outskirts of town hoping they might get lucky and intercept the couple on the way to or from a gathering. Once Deputy Ted Hinton tried using a heavy truck to force Clyde off the road, but there was too much traffic and Clyde eluded him. Another time, the Dallas County lawmen borrowed a V-8 and tried to keep up with Clyde as he raced away in his own V-8. Clyde had plenty of experience driving such a powerful vehicle; Schmid’s deputies didn’t, and they burned out their car’s engine as Clyde escaped again.
Hamer wanted to hear those stories and more. He quizzed Schmid and his men about even the smallest details concerning Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. What kind of clothes did they wear? What brand of cigarettes did each smoke? He’d never seen the fugitives himself, and it wasn’t enough to be shown mug shots. “An officer,” Hamer told historian Walter Prescott Webb later, “must know the mental habits of the outlaw, how he thinks, and how he will react in different situations.” Schmid and deputies Alcorn and Hinton told him what they knew, and when the meeting ended Schmid offered to send Alcorn out along with Hamer, since the Dallas County deputy had so much experience on the Barrow Gang’s trail. Hamer turned down Alcorn’s company for the time being. He was just beginning to gather information and could travel faster by himself.
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