On the Run With Bonnie & Clyde

by John Gilmore

  No. He caught on fast to what he was thinking. There was a big woman with white spots on her arms and the backs of her hands. She had a wide mouth and teeth larger than his own. Spaces between the upper teeth. A burning light globe was hanging above from a ragged black extension cord, but the woman was holding a flashlight on him, the beam on W.D.’s chest. She had a deep, almost man-like voice. “You got it before any infection,” she said.

  W.D. recalled later, “I heard those words like she was sayin’ it over and kept sayin’ it, but she wasn’t. It was just bouncin’ in my head. I remember a little, like Bud stoppin’ the car, then me walkin’ into a kind of office or kitchen, Bud sort of holding me up on my feet. He had me lay down on a table, and I felt how cold the wood was on my back ’cause I didn’t have a shirt on. I didn’t remember takin’ the shirt off, but he was sayin’, ‘Lift your damn head up, boy, and open your mouth!’ He had me drink something. Soon as I taste it I remembered he’d had me drink some in the car, and he’d had Sis drink it. She was talkin’ to him but I didn’t know what she said.

  “I felt him pinch my arm, and then the woman, her long black hair braided like big hunks of rope, shined her flashlight on my arm where Bud had a big hypodermic needle and was stickin’ it into me. I could remember her sayin’ to leave the bullet in ’cause it wasn’t gonna do nothin’ where it was—somethin’ like I wasn’t gonna die from it. Bud kept askin’ what I was sayin’ but damned if I remembered what I’d said.

  “Everythin’ that happened since I’d conked out in the car worryin’ about bein’ dead got all scrambled, and the bits of talk, like I remember Sis sayin’, ‘You’re wrong ’cause laudanum tastes like shit!’ Must’ve been just before I wasn’t on the table anymore and Bud kickin’ open a screen door, same kind of screen on my momma’s house. Bud was carryin’ Sis still wrapped with that blanket, and I remember hopin’ she wasn’t dead ’cause he had her head covered. Then I couldn’t see, and I didn’t know if I was dreamin’ about her layin’ on that table with her naked breasts and stomach all showin’. I did think I was glad that I’d warmed the cold tabletop for her, and I was talkin’ but I don’t know where I was in the room. I wasn’t seein’ good, my eyes had a damn fence over them—no, it wasn’t that. I didn’t know what it was. That big woman said some stuff in injun talk—to someone else in the room? Some Indian? I didn’t know. Whoever it was approved of Clyde’s handlin’ of the bullet wound through my side, but when the subject of the hole through Buck’s head came up, the man said, ‘Very bad. He’ll die.’

  “Bud was laughin’ for a minute, and then usin’ the same big tweezers he’d used on me to be pullin’ buckshot out of Sis’s belly skin. I just saw the little holes the shots had made and him openin’ the holes and goin’ in with the tweezers while that big woman poured what must’ve been peroxide on Sis’s stomach.

  “Then she was still on the table, but with another sort of blanket coverin’ her while Bud was pryin’ at his own arm, the injun woman pourin’ again, and in a moment I heard the plunk of the slug hit the bottom of a metal bucket.”

  W.D. would remember that night as one of the worst he’d ever passed. It wasn’t over when he opened his eyes and there was still no light coming in through a little window above a door. He wasn’t sure it’d been the same night or some other night. All he knew was it was dark outside. A candle stuck in an old pan was burning and he smelled cigarette smoke.

  Clyde was in an old chair by the window. He was wearing blue denim pants and a kind of cowboy shirt with tin buttons. “Bud had the pistol on his lap and was pressing slugs into the clip. He pushed the magazine into the chamber, cocked it and lowered the firing pin. I asked him where he got the bullets, but all he said was to get Sis on her feet ’cause we had to get goin’.

  “I was on a bed and didn’t have any deep achin’ like I’d had, and I smelled adhesive tape and iodine on bandages stingin’ sort of on my chest. Sis was like a bundle on my right side, wrapped up in a different blanket, a puffed-up blanket with pictures of flowers on it. She was lyin’ on her right side facin’ the wall, and I reached to put my hand on her shoulder but my chest stung right across the front of me....”

  Bonnie groaned and reached around. “My stomach’s all over with tape. An’ my back?”

  W.D. said her back was okay. She said, “Gimme a smoke.” Clyde tossed the pack of Camels and the book of matches. W.D. gave Bonnie the cigarettes, and lit a match for her.

  W.D. recalled that his thoughts seemed clear but he’d never seen the room before. “An old room with a bunch of junk,” he said. “A toilet in what had been a bathroom, no door on it, and a bunch of hooks on a wall to hang stuff. Looked like rags hangin’ on the hooks.”

  “Both of you are okay,” Clyde said. “We gotta get out of here, so get up. Help her up, boy. Let her do what she’s gotta do in the can, and you get dressed in the car. Just wrap that blanket ’round you and get the clothes on I got in the car.”

  “I’m gettin’ up,” Bonnie said, holding on to W.D.’s arm. He lifted her and took her into the dingy bathroom. No lights. He placed her on the toilet and went back to the open doorway.

  Clyde said, “We gotta go before anyone else in this town starts movin’ around.”

  W.D. said, “Where are we?”

  “Broken Bow,” Clyde said. “Let’s go.”

  W.D. remembered it was freezing cold the previous night. Clyde had replaced the Iowa plate with one from Colorado. “I got Sis on the passenger seat in front, then found the clothes on the floor under a new blanket—a couple pair of new pants like the ones Clyde had on, some dresses and a sweatshirt, some sweaters and coats with price tags on the sleeves. “I got the stuff moved over and fixed a sort of nest for Sis, but she said she didn’t want to lay down. She’d stay in the front with us, she said. I said I’d sit in the rear, sleep a little. She said to hand her something to wear, so I got the girls’ stuff up to her as Bud started the car.

  “We were movin’ and I looked around to see where we’d been, saw that old screen door I’d see him comin’ through in the night. It was all too mixed-up to think about. All I knew was I didn’t have the kind of hurtin’ feelin’s I’d had when it was day, whenever that’d been. I just got into the new duds, put on a coat, puffed up Bonnie’s blanket and went to sleep.”

  “Following a river for a while,” W.D. recalled, “then south across the line into Kansas. After runnin’ the back roads, Clyde finally stopped along the highway at a roadside diner. He gave me some money from a wad I figured must’ve come from his night huntin’, and sent me in for three orders of ham and eggs, hotcakes and coffee. There weren’t any laws around, just a couple old guys with a truck, and two other fellas in the kitchen. The gal behind the counter was very pleasant and stacked up our order into a big sack. I paid her and went back to the car. Clyde had the engine goin’ and nobody was lookin’ after me or suspicious of anythin’ goin’ on. Bonnie was starvin’, she said, and I gave her some my hotcakes ’cause I couldn’t eat them all.

  “Clyde was sayin’, ‘You got a bunch of tape on your chest, boy, that’s holdin’ a bandage. You both’ll be okay in a couple days, and you’ll see scabs that’ll bust off and you’ll have a bunch of little scars like polka dots. I got most all the shot out of you both. We left that slug in your chest, boy, ’cause it woulda been worse gettin’ it out than leavin’ it in, and it ain’t gonna kill you.’’’

  Later, leaning against W.D., Bonnie slept on the front seat as they headed across the Kansas border. Clyde veered off the road and drove for minutes before finding a deserted barn. He parked behind the barn and said, “There’s room on the rear seat, so Sis can be layin’ down.”

  Shaking his head, W.D. opened the door. “I gotta go puke. I think that pill, or maybe I’m poisoned like the doc was sayin’.” He got out of the car and shut the door. Clyde leaned back, his eyes closing.

  “Do you think I’m ever gonna be alright?” Bonnie asked, gently massaging her leg.“Will I be crippled u
p for the rest of my life?”

  “I don’t know,” Clyde said. “We’d have to go some other place—some place like Mexico, or another country, to get you worked on proper. No way to do that here without gettin’ shot.”

  Bonnie sighed. “Right now, are they plannin’ on shootin’ me, too, daddy?”

  Clyde nodded. “I guess so. If they’re shootin’ at me you’re in the line of fire—if you’re that close to me.”

  “Close to you,” she said, repeating him. She then raised her head. “I saw the picture of Sittin’ Bull on the doc’s wall.” she said. Clyde nodded. Staring through the windshield at the moon, she said, “You think he looked somethin’ like Chief Sittin’ Bull? Even though he told us what a half-breed means—that he isn’t all Sioux.”

  “I don’t know,” Clyde said. “Things’re dancin’ in my head. Fuckin’ pain-killin’ hypos. Go back to sleep. Boy’s sick. He’s knocked out. He can climb on the seat back there. You stay up here and go to sleep, honey.”

  “What about you?” she asked. “I can stay awake.”

  Clyde looked at her, leaned towards her until his lips touched hers, and he said, “Go to sleep, honey. I love you.”

  After a few moments, she said, “Are we gonna die?”

  “Does it matter?” Clyde asked.

  She shook her head a little. Smiling, she said, “Not as long as we’re together.”

  “...shot in left breast, going into chest; shot 4” below ear; another shot, entering above the right knee; two shots front leg; two shots right leg; gunshot wound around edge of hair, 1 1/2” above the left ear; another through the mouth on left side, exiting at top of jaw; another at middle, just below left jaw; another above clavicle, left side, going into the neck; two shots about 2” below left shoulder, fracturing the bone; another wound on elbow of left arm; another, entering left chest above the heart, breaking ribs; six shots entering 3” on back region left side; five pellet wounds about the middle of left side; cuts from glass on the left ankle; cut on top of left foot, apparently from glass; cut on center of right thigh; cut 6” in length, about 3 1/2” center of right leg; eight metal fragments entering cross the front of face; exit wounds 6” on the inner side of right leg; flesh wound underside of right knee; bullet wound right leg about middle of outer right knee; wound on center of ankle about 2” above back of foot; gunshot wound to bone of first ringer; another to the middle finger; gunshot wound entering fleshy portion of left thigh; eight bullet wounds striking almost in parallel line on left side; three parallel lines of bullets striking right side of back from base of neck to angular right scapular to middle of back bone, one striking midway of back, breaking backbone.”

  “...gunshot wound in head, center front of left ear, exiting about 2” above right ear; one entering edge of brain above left eye; several shots entering left shoulder joint; small glass cut at joint, first finger of right hand; seven small bullet wounds around middle of right knee; a number of glass wounds; bullet wound right leg, about middle of outer left knee; bullet wound on exterior ankle; wounds about face; wound 2” above back, a great hole gunshot wound, back of first finger another would, middle finger at one, entering the member.”

  Thirty-Five

  Staring at the wide Mississippi River for an hour, the car parked on the bank at Clarksville, Missouri, W.D. made his decision. He’d had enough. No more bullets or shotgun pellets riddling his hide. He started the car, turned around and got the gas tank filled as Clyde had asked him to, but instead of returning to the abandoned cabin where they were hiding, W.D. drove southwest. He’d drive as far as he could, and as long as the gas held out. He’d have to ditch the car, but there were still two pistols in the trunk. He’d take them, sell one to an Indian on the highway, and keep the other as long as he could. Wouldn’t do him good to be caught with it if he ran into the laws. Without it he was just another young bum “hoboin’” back to wherever he’d first lit out. Wouldn’t be any good to be hauling a .45 unless he intended on defending himself. Against who? “Clyde,” he’d say. He was escaping from Clyde Barrow who’d been holding him a prisoner. Chaining him to a tree at night or the back bumper of another stolen car. He’d deny playing any part in the killings. Asleep when any bad crimes were committed.

  Sleeping on the near-freezing ground. He’d have permanent trouble with his bones.

  The joints would work. Wouldn’t bend any more. He wasn’t going to change any more stinking tires or fuck with distributors. Wasn’t going to steal any more batteries....

  But he wouldn’t be talking to Bonnie anymore. She’d be sitting with her eyes closed, almost hidden behind those rose-colored glasses. He enjoyed talking to Bonnie. He had to admit he never knew or got to know any other girl he enjoyed hearing as much as Bonnie. He believed he learned things as she spoke. It was that sort of feeling he had for her.

  Clyde didn’t talk a lot. He was all business. But he treated them like a family. He had a job to do and did the jobs—didn’t matter that it wasn’t legal because he’d told W.D. if you don’t live as they’re telling you to live, then they say it’s not legal. More than a few times Clyde said it was a war, and they were out to kill you unless you got them out of your way first. They were always there to get you—to kill you.

  W.D. would say, “I never saw Clyde shoot anyone who wasn’t aiming a gun at him with every intent of pullin’ the trigger. He never shot any person in a bank or a store, and as for Bonnie, she never once even pulled a gun on somebody. To live with the true side of somethin’s a whole lot different than the way they try and tell you how it happened.

  “I didn’t want to be an outlaw and be dyin’. I didn’t want to get shot up no more and sleepin’ on the ground. I had a choice to make and nobody’d make it except me and it didn’t have nothin’ to do with what I felt about Bud and Sis. It got me hard and sad to run off, but I was doin’ that or dyin’ a lot sooner than I had any rights to. I felt real kin to both, and knowin’ what they were thinkin’—that they’d be dyin’ soon and it didn’t matter to ’em, the dyin’ part, so long as they’d be dyin’ together. Inside me, I knew I had no place in that thinkin’, but if I got set on stickin’ with them, I’d wind up just another hunk of baggage all shot up by the laws.”

  Clyde drove up a winding mountain road to a complex of rock, stopped the car and closed his eyes. Bonnie was already asleep. Nobody’d see them. There wasn’t a living soul for dozens of miles. Just maybe the spirits of all the dead Indians. Clyde slept sitting behind the steering wheel until the sun came up. He opened his eyes. He knew it was time. It was moving in his bones. He couldn’t sleep for the careful planning. He woke Bonnie and told her what he had to do—how it had to be, each moment of it orchestrated in precision like gears getting thrown into action.

  “I’m there every minute of it,” Bonnie said. “It’s takin’ my next breath.”

  His plan for the raid on Eastham had obsessed him. In dreams he felt himself pulling at the chain around his neck. He remembered every dirty detail he’d lived through, repeating and repeating every blow of a club or burn of a whip. Usually the whip was across the backs of the legs. With Ralph he’d shared the bitter memories as a brother in pain, and he’d shaped his blueprint around each galling detail like a drill bit ripping at a sheet of metal. “I can’t do it without you,” he’d told Ralph, “and I oughta shoot that fuckin’ Ray for walkin’ out on us.”

  Now he needed crates of ammunition. He needed partners whose hate for the head of the prison system and the steel bars was as strong as Clyde’s.

  Many backed away from what seemed only a crazy scheme. Lining up a gang to knock over banks was one thing—busting into a prison was “a horse of a different hue.” Yet in rapid succession, Clyde brought a raiding party—two of the cons carrying memories as rotten as his own. Another, Ted Rogers, was a look-alike for Ray Hamilton, and another had been locked up with Ralph.

  Clyde told Bonnie, “With the fellas I’ve got, we can do it, but we gotta be sure of the firepow
er.” Two more banks were planned, in Denton, the gang hitting both at the same time. “Just like the Dalton boys of the Old West,” Bonnie said.

  She later told her sister that things went wrong. “Clyde’s plans got wrecked,” she said, because of trouble between the men. As soon as the group was ready to take the two Denton banks, they found a pair of Texas Rangers “sitting on their duffs” in front of the building. On top of that, Clyde quickly suspected other Rangers were snooping around any further jobs—seeming to know in advance whatever Clyde was targeting. Most of the men withdrew from the Eastham plan, and Clyde told Bonnie they had a “leak” in the gang—“word’s gettin’ to the laws ahead of us,” he said.

  Thirty-Six

  Ray Hamilton was desperate. He’d been locked up for a year, transported often for trial after trial and wound up in Huntsville, facing almost four life sentences. He bragged—“a loud-mouth” he was called, his repeated and insisted superiority as a bank robber and gunman making him an almost laughing stock amongst the more hardened inmates. He kept insisting Clyde Barrow would soon be “bustin’” him out. The question several convicts asked was “Why should Barrow bother with a loud-mouth-stick up punk?”

  Years later, Ralph Fults, also back in prison at the time, recalled the rumors about Clyde “attacking Eastham” to free a handful of “devoted killers” and bank robbers. Fults says, “Ray never shut his mouth about it, got to the point where nobody believed Barrow’d risk himself on such a far-fetched plan. Damn if it wasn’t gonna happen, and since Ray was such a ‘blabbermouth’ no one in authority took him seriously. It was a different matter when it did happen, and all crap blew loose in the Texas governor’s mansion all the way to Washington D.C.”

  Ralph knew someday in the not-too-distant future he’d be a free man—an ex-con, but free. “Gettin’ busted out by Clyde would’ve put a lid on any idea of me bein’ free. I knew damn well anyone busted out they’d be tracked without mercy. As it was, Ray was gonna be tried for murder and be gettin’ the chair, and I wanted no part of it. Lee Simmons who ran the prisons was a rotten son of a bitch—a damn sadist who must’ve laid awake nights prayin’ he’d get Clyde behind bars once again, but never once believin’ Barrow’d pull such a stunt as bustin’ guys out.