Jeff Guinn
Page 36
By the end of April, Hamer and his posse were frustrated, too. Ted Hinton wrote later that they’d trailed Clyde and Bonnie through “the swamps in the Louisiana back country and the smoky hills of Arkansas.” They’d glimpsed them, then lost them, in Durant, Oklahoma. “If we were accomplishing anything—and most of the time it was difficult to convince ourselves that we were—it was that we were keeping them on the run,” Hinton wrote in his memoir, Ambush. “But each time we seemed to have placed them in a definite area, reports would come of crimes committed at some distant point outside the area where they were last seen.”
But Frank Hamer hadn’t told the other posse members about his new plan. There were now two constants in the Barrow Gang’s movements. They often came to see their families in West Dallas. It was clear they couldn’t be taken quickly or cleanly there. And, since February, Clyde and Bonnie had kept returning to Bienville Parish. It was too bad they camped at night in a variety of locations rather than sleeping at the old Cole place, where they could have been easily trapped. But the logistics of the area, at least, gave Clyde no choice but to drive to get-togethers with the Methvin family on narrow roads far from any towns. In most places, these roads were lined with thick brush—it was impossible to see much on either side. If getting the drop on Clyde and Bonnie while they slept wasn’t feasible, maybe an ambush was. The key was making the outlaw couple feel safe enough in Bienville Parish to let their guards down. Speaking several months later to American Detective magazine, Texas prison system manager Lee Simmons explained that Hamer deliberately made his posse’s presence obvious in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas so that Bienville Parish “began to loom before [Clyde and Bonnie] as a haven, which was exactly what Hamer had planned.”
Ted Hinton, Bob Alcorn, and perhaps even Manny Gault (among the posse members, Hamer had the closest relationship with the former Ranger) thought they were fruitlessly chasing the Barrow Gang around several states. Hamer knew better—but he was basing his strategy on someone who wasn’t trustworthy. According to Hamer, Bienville Parish sheriff Henderson Jordan had promised to cooperate exclusively with him. Whenever Henry Methvin’s father, Ivy, or Methvin family friend John Joyner tipped Jordan that the Barrow Gang might be taken by surprise in some spot or another, Hamer expected Jordan to summon him and his posse immediately. Jordan did stay in touch with Hamer, frequently phoning him with updates. But he stayed in contact with Justice Department Division of Investigation Special Agent L. A. Kindell in New Orleans, too, and when, during the second week in April, John Joyner informed Jordan that Clyde and Bonnie were expected by the Methvins on April 13, Jordan invited Kindell instead of Hamer to come to Arcadia and help organize an ambush. Kindell showed up with an army of agents, but at the last minute Joyner arrived to say that the Barrow Gang’s visit had been called off.
Sometime later in April, Hamer and Jordan’s phone conversations began to focus on where in Bienville Parish an ambush could be set. Hamer expected Ivy Methvin to be actively involved. If the Methvin family invited Clyde and Bonnie to meet somewhere at a specific place and time, then Hamer could set up his ambush to surprise Clyde en route. But Ivy Methvin balked. Clyde was too smart to get surprised like that, he told Jordan. If the law tried a roadside ambush, Clyde would smell it out, somehow avoid it, and then kill everybody involved, including all the Methvins. The deal as the Methvins understood it was just to tip off Jordan when the Barrow Gang was staying in the area. Jordan told Ivy Methvin that “[you] had agreed to help us, and [you are] going to do that.” Otherwise, there’d be no Texas pardon for Ivy’s son Henry. Ivy Methvin accepted his new responsibility, though he made it clear he wasn’t happy about it.
The logistics of Hamer’s new roadside ambush plan were different from those for taking the couple by surprise in a camp. If Clyde was driving his usual Ford V-8 when Hamer’s posse sprang its ambush, relatively low-caliber bullets from their current weapons would bounce right off the vehicle’s doors. Heavier ordnance was needed. Hamer, Lee Simmons, or Smoot Schmid contacted Weldon Dowis, the commander of the Texas National Guard unit with jurisdiction over the state armory in Dallas, and asked that two BARs be loaned to the posse. It was always simple for Clyde to break into armories and steal all the BARs he wanted, but Dowis didn’t make it easy for the lawmen to be similarly armed. He said the weapons in the armory’s arsenal were for Guard, not civilian, use and turned down the request. But after Texas congressman Hatton Sumners intervened, Dowis reluctantly issued a pair of BARs to Hamer and his men. He said decades later that he had to teach the lawmen how to shoot them—the BARs were so powerful that they required a much stronger grip than ordinary rifles.
Hamer was confident that Clyde and Bonnie would come back to Bienville Parish in May. He had the firepower and the general location for staging his ambush. Now all he needed was a specific place and time.
CHAPTER 33
Final Meetings
After robbing the bank in Everly, Iowa, on May 3, Clyde, Bonnie, and Henry Methvin returned to Bienville Parish. Joe Palmer didn’t go with them—he went north to Chicago because he wanted to attend the World’s Fair there. When they arrived back in northwest Louisiana, Clyde and Bonnie resumed spending their days driving around the heavily wooded backcountry, often taking evening meals with various Methvins. They still camped out at night in a series of different spots. Only the two of them knew where or how many. Otherwise, Frank Hamer’s strategy to lull them into a false sense of security obviously worked. The couple made no attempt to keep their presence a secret from parish residents. They offered local kids rides in their gleaming car, regularly patronized Ma Canfield’s café in Gibsland—Clyde would carry Bonnie inside—and rewarded service station attendants with candy bars for filling the tank of the Ford V-8.
On Sunday, May 6, Clyde and Bonnie drove four hours west from Gibsland for another family gathering on the outskirts of Dallas. Henry Methvin apparently didn’t come with them—recalling the get-together years later, none of the surviving Barrows or Parkers mentioned that he was present. Henry and his own parents undoubtedly had a lot to discuss while Clyde and Bonnie were away on their brief trip to Texas.
According to Emma Parker, Bonnie was in a contemplative mood while she and Clyde were with their loved ones that night. She pulled her mother aside, sat with Emma on the grass, and quietly asked that she be taken home rather than to a funeral parlor after she died. Emma was appalled and tried to shush her daughter, but Bonnie insisted on sharing a whole scenario she’d worked out. Her body must lie in state in the Parkers’ front room, with her mother, brother, Buster, and sister, Billie Jean, sitting beside it—“A long, cool, peaceful night together before I leave you.” There was no sense pretending it wouldn’t happen soon, Bonnie added. Everyone knew what was coming. Realizing her mother’s penchant for blaming Bonnie’s troubles on the poor example set by Clyde, Bonnie also made Emma swear that in the future she’d never “say anything ugly” about him. It was a promise Emma wouldn’t keep. Finally, Bonnie presented her mother with a poem she had recently written called “The End of the Line.” In a matter of weeks, Emma would give a copy to a reporter, resulting in hundreds of newspapers reprinting the work that would become popularly known as “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde.”
Bonnie Parker wasn’t a gifted poet. She had a stuttering sense of rhythm and frequently indulged in overblown imagery. Some of those flaws are present in “The End of the Line,” but this time she got almost everything right. Crafting the sixteen-stanza poem must have been cathartic for Bonnie. She tried to cram everything in—frustration with the Barrow Gang being blamed for crimes they didn’t commit; scorn for the media; pride in the refusal of her hometown slum residents to cooperate with police; and the certainty that she and Clyde would pay for their crimes with their lives. The infamous Lindbergh kidnapping is also cited. “The End of the Line” sometimes smacks of self-pity; it reveals considerable self-awareness also. Even though the overall tone is resigned, Bonnie’s sense of humor
is also evident. “The End of the Line” includes Clyde suggesting that they find employment through the NRA. Bonnie was probably referring to the National Recovery Administration, which had received considerable recent publicity for enforcing collective bargaining rights for unions, setting maximum work hours, and mandating a minimum wage.
THE END OF THE LINE
You’ve read the story of Jesse James—
Of how he lived and died;
If you’re still in need
Of something to read
Here’s the story of Bonnie and Clyde.
Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow gang.
I’m sure you all have read
How they rob and steal
And those who squeal
Are usually found dying or dead.
There’s lots of untruths to those write-ups;
They’re not so ruthless as that;
Their nature is raw;
They hate the law—
The stool pigeons, spotters, and rats.
They call them cold-blooded killers;
They say they are heartless and mean;
But I say this with pride,
That I once knew Clyde
When he was honest and upright and clean.
But the laws fooled around,
Kept taking him down
And locking him up in a cell,
Till he said to me,
“I’ll never be free,
So I’ll meet a few of them in hell.”
The road was so dimly lighted;
There were no highway signs to guide;
But they made up their minds
If all roads were blind,
They wouldn’t give up till they died.
The road gets dimmer and dimmer;
Sometimes you can hardly see;
But it’s fight, man to man,
And do all you can,
For they know they can never be free.
From heart-break some people have suffered;
From weariness some people have died;
But take all in all,
Our troubles are small
Till we get like Bonnie and Clyde.
If a policeman is killed in Dallas,
And they have no clue or guide;
If they can’t find a fiend,
They just wipe their slate clean
And hang it on Bonnie and Clyde.
There’s two crimes committed in America,
Not accredited to the Barrow mob;
They had no hand
In the kidnap demand,
Nor the Kansas City Depot job.
A newsboy once said to his buddy:
“I wish old Clyde would get jumped;
In these awful hard times
We’d make a few dimes
If five or six cops would get bumped.”
The police haven’t got the report yet
But Clyde called me up today;
He said, “Don’t start any fights—
We aren’t working nights—
We’re joining the NRA.”
From Irving to the West Dallas viaduct
Is known as the Great Divide,
Where the women are kin,
And the men are men,
And they won’t “stool” on Bonnie and Clyde.
If they try to act like citizens
And rent them a nice little flat,
About the third night
They’re invited to fight
By a sub-gun’s rat-tat-tat.
They don’t think they’re too smart or desperate,
They know the law always wins;
They’ve been shot at before,
But they do not ignore
That death is the wages of sin.
Some day they’ll go down together;
And they’ll bury them side by side,
To a few it’ll be grief—
To the law a relief—
But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.
After about two hours, Clyde and Bonnie said they had to leave. They promised they’d return in a few weeks. But the next night Clyde was back in West Dallas, arriving alone after dark at the Barrow family service station on Eagle Ford Road. This wasn’t unprecedented. Clyde occasionally visited his parents without bringing Bonnie along. On Monday night, May 7, only Henry Barrow was home, and Clyde asked his father to meet him a block west from the busy road where a side street intersected with the Texas and Pacific railroad tracks. He drove ahead—just in case the police were waiting to pounce and he had to race away, Clyde didn’t want Henry stuck in the car with him—and waited while Henry walked over. Then Clyde told his father he had some papers he wanted to sign and leave with him. He didn’t say what kind of papers they were, and taciturn Henry didn’t ask. Since Henry was illiterate, he couldn’t read them anyway. The father held a flashlight as his son rummaged around the Ford’s crowded back seat. No matter what car Clyde might be driving, there was always a lot piled there—suitcases, the latest true crime magazines and newspapers with stories about the Barrow Gang, Bonnie’s typewriter, the saxophone Clyde acquired after leaving his guitar behind in the April 1933 flight from Joplin—because there was never room for baggage in the trunk. That’s where Clyde stored the gang’s arsenal of BARs, handguns, ammunition, and loose license plates to switch onto the next cars he stole. Clyde pulled things out, balancing them on the car’s running board, until he finally found the right suitcase. He rested it on the hood of the Ford, opened it, and removed two sheets of paper. After he signed them and added his thumbprint, he told Henry, they should be given to his mother, Cumie. She’d know what to do with them. But the pen Clyde took from his pocket was out of ink, and it was the only one he had brought with him. Henry didn’t carry a pen—he never wrote anything, so he didn’t need one. Clyde put the papers back in the suitcase and said that signing them could wait. He’d do it when he and Bonnie came back for their next visit. Then Clyde chatted with his father for a while until finally he decided they’d been out in the open long enough. Clyde said goodbye to Henry and drove away.
Henry told Cumie about the mysterious papers. She wrote in her unpublished memoir that he had “gained the impression it involved some land or money.” Just a few weeks earlier at their family gathering in mid-April, Clyde had talked about buying property in Louisiana. The rest of the Barrows and Emma Parker privately considered that unlikely—where in the world could Clyde and Bonnie get enough money for something like that? But now they apparently had. When Clyde opened the suitcase, Henry said he saw it contained stacks of currency as well as the papers to be signed. As improbable as it seemed to his parents, after more than two years of eking out a scant illegal living, Clyde was suddenly flush with cash. Henry and Cumie wanted to ask their son where the money had come from, but they never got the chance.
CHAPTER 34
A New Line of Work
The Eastham Prison Farm breakout on January 16, 1934, that freed Raymond Hamilton, Joe Palmer, Henry Methvin, and Hilton Bybee had made front-page headlines for weeks. The remote, well-guarded farm property was believed by prison officials and the public to be invulnerable to attack. The relatively simple scheme Raymond Hamilton hatched with his brother Floyd—smuggle in two guns, have a getaway car parked nearby—proved otherwise, but nobody realized it was the Hamilton brothers’ plan. Clyde was given complete if undeserved credit for masterminding a supposedly impossible feat. The media had proclaimed his genius for planning jail breaks, and a month later when someone organized a daring escape for several inmates in the Kansas state prison in Lansing, newspapers speculated that Clyde Barrow probably was behind that one, too. He wasn’t—Clyde had spent February on the move with Bonnie, Raymond, Henry Methvin, and Joe Palmer—but the belief spread anyway: Clyde Barrow not only robbed banks, he could break anyone out of any prison. And that caught the attention of O. D. Stevens, who very much wanted to get out of jail in Fort Worth before a jury there could sentence him to the electric cha
ir. The day after Clyde’s death, U.S. Marshal J. R. “Red” Wright told the Dallas Dispatch that authorities had learned Clyde agreed sometime in early 1934 to break Stevens and two partners out of the Tarrant County jail for $18,000.
Stevens, thirty-eight, was a Fort Worth criminal kingpin, dealing hard drugs such as morphine, heroin, and cocaine and leading a well-organized, highly successful gang. On February 21, 1933, Stevens orchestrated the theft of $72,000 from Fort Worth’s Texas & Pacific railroad station. Three masked men participated in the holdup itself, but they were only part of a wider plan. The loot had to be laundered elsewhere—Stevens handled that—and then he and partners W. D. May and M. T. Howard allegedly increased their shares of the take by murdering the original trio of bandits. Bloody clothing found floating in the Trinity River outside Fort Worth led police to the wife of one of the victims, whose testimony soon implicated Stevens, May, and Howard. They were arrested in July, and from the moment he was locked up, Stevens began financing attempts to help him and his two partners escape. He managed to have hacksaw blades smuggled in at least twice, but jailors discovered them before he could saw through the bars of his cell. The three men’s murder trial was delayed while officials investigated some of Stevens’s other alleged crimes, and April 1934 found him in isolation lockdown, secured to his cell wall by a neck collar and chain because he was so obviously determined to escape. Stevens’s situation was dire. He was under constant guard, and already had been sentenced to twenty-six years in prison for the Texas & Pacific robbery. His conviction for murder seemed certain; the trial was set for mid-June. The Tarrant County jail in Fort Worth was fortresslike, and it seemed impossible for anyone to break him and his two partners out of it. But, according to what Stevens heard, Clyde Barrow had pulled off at least one miraculous breakout at Eastham Prison Farm, and maybe a second one in Lansing, Kansas, too. Perhaps Clyde would be willing to attempt another in Fort Worth.
Everybody in the Dallas–Fort Worth criminal underground knew how to get in touch with Clyde. His brother L.C. and sister Marie, who both saw Clyde frequently, could be found almost every night at the Fish Trap Dance Hall in West Dallas. It must have been relatively easy for Stevens to use one of his outside contacts to carry a message to them there, asking Clyde to rescue him and his partners. Breaking well-known criminals out of a heavily guarded Fort Worth jail would have appealed to Clyde’s ego. Since his own incarceration on Eastham farm he’d always liked the idea of helping inmates escape. The fact that Stevens was a drug dealer and multiple murderer apparently didn’t matter to Clyde. What did was the money Stevens offered—$6,000 each for himself, May, and Howard. That was plenty for Clyde and Bonnie to realize their dream of buying land for their families in Louisiana.