We traveled south to Louisiana and crossed over to Shreveport by way of the toll bridge there. It was pretty risky, but we had to take lots of chances. From Shreveport, we continued south. It was past midnight when we stopped in the pinewoods and slept for a few hours.15 Buck, Bonnie, and I took turns keeping watch while the others slept. We always tried to let Clyde get as much sleep as he could, because he did most of the driving.
We felt better after a little sleep. We would have to drive to Dallas to see if W. D. had gone home, or if he had been captured, or maybe killed.16 Clyde was worried about him because the wound he’d received in Joplin had not yet healed completely. When we drove through Palestine, Texas, we bought a newspaper. Our names were in big headlines.17
6
Friction
Editor’s Note: May 1933
May was relatively quiet for the Barrow brothers. They were involved in at least two bank robberies, both rather bizarre and both attributed to others. Apart from those incidents, they apparently roamed at will through a large number of states and visited the Dallas area at least once. Otherwise, storms, more crime, and economic relief dominated the news of the month.
On the second, eighty-nine people were reported killed and another thousand injured by tornadoes in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. On May 10, storms killed sixty-seven in Tennessee and Kentucky. On the twelfth, the day the Barrow gang sprayed Lucerne, Indiana, with automatic weapons fire following a failed robbery, flooding in central Indiana was reported as the worst in twenty years. A week later, on the very day the Barrow brothers robbed the First State Bank of Okabena, Minnesota, six were injured by heavy rain and lightning overnight. Fourteen people died when tornadoes swept through Kansas and Nebraska on the twenty-third. Two days later heavy thunderstorms struck Dallas, Texas, swelling the Trinity River to flood stage. The month closed with tornadoes touching down in rural Dallas County.1
A number of banks were robbed in May. In addition to those in Lucerne, Indiana and Okabena, Minnesota, already mentioned, banks in St. John, Missouri; Prague, Oklahoma; and several other cities were also looted. In Lucerne it was reported that two women, “one of them a blonde armed with an automatic rifle,” fired several volleys from a moving car as they and their cohorts escaped. “This’ll learn ya!” one of the women reportedly yelled from the speeding car.2
Apart from Nazi book burnings in Germany, the Japanese army’s push toward the Chinese capital, and the opening of the Chicago World’s Fair, the rest of the month’s news was economic. On May 12, while the Barrow gang was shooting up Lucerne, Indiana, President Roosevelt signed the Farm Currency Act, extending immediate relief to the agricultural industry. Roosevelt also urged mortgagers to suspend farm foreclosures. Nevertheless, on the same day 900,000 independent farmers joined in a general strike, which had originated in St. Paul, Minnesota. On the fifteenth, dairy farmers blocked roads in Wisconsin and Illinois to stop milk shipments until wholesale prices rose. Two days later Roosevelt submitted a $3.3 billion employment plan to Congress.3
The last week in May saw J. Pierpont Morgan, described as “the world’s most powerful banker,” appearing before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee to explain, among other things, why he had paid no income tax in 1931 and 1932. Reportedly “sweating profusely,” Morgan also had to answer questions regarding an alleged list of “preferred customers” to whom he would sell securities at below-market value. Among the names on the list: World War I hero General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing and former President Calvin Coolidge. Two days later, it was revealed that partners in Morgan’s firm had issued themselves loans from company assets. Such revelations only served to galvanize public opinion against the banking industry and big business in general.4
On the next-to-last day of May, Barrow cohort Raymond Hamilton was in the Hill County (Texas) jail facing his second trial for the April 30, 1932, murder of Hillsboro store owner John N. Bucher. The night before, Mark Kitchen, a key witness against Hamilton, was abducted by two men who beat him, tied him up with barbed wire, and threatened to kill him if he testified.5
IN DALLAS, WHEN WE saw Mrs. Barrow, we learned that W. D. had not been there and that nothing had been printed in the papers about him.6 Clyde left word for W. D., saying that he would be back for him soon. Then we started driving day and night again. We traveled so fast and through so many towns and states that I lost all track of time. I often didn’t even know what day it was. We lived in the car day and night with very little sleep, just driving like mad, going no place. We had to keep ahead of the cops. If we stayed in one place very long they would catch up with us, although we did stay at a lake near Warsaw, Indiana, for a few days.
When we needed money, which was often, some filling station, grocery store, or drug store was robbed. Then we’d drive three or four hundred miles before stopping to rest for a few hours. Once Buck and Clyde robbed a small-town bank.7 They left Bonnie and me about eight or ten miles outside of town, in the country. We were to drive into town in the morning and pick them up at a certain time.8 They stayed in the bank almost all night, waiting for it to open in the morning. They had hidden on top of the vault. When the banker came in to open the vault, he saw them. Before they could rob him, he jumped into the vault, grabbed a gun, and came out shooting. I don’t think anyone was shot. We never read anything about it in the papers.9
By then, we’d driven in to pick them up. I don’t even know what town it was, but as we rode through the outskirts an old man tried to stop the car. Clyde told Buck to shoot the man. Buck said he could not shoot an old man, or anyone else unless they were shooting at him and that it was his only way out.10
The old man threw a large chunk of wood in front of the car. Clyde almost hit it. If he had, it would have been too bad for all of us.11 Clyde laid one of the rifles across Bonnie’s lap, with the barrel sticking out the window. He told Bonnie to hold it up and shoot. She did. We heard later that a woman was wounded in the arm.12 I was so scared that Buck made me lie down on the floor between the seats. I couldn’t see out. That made me more afraid. In the end, they got no money and had to rob some other place before the day was gone.13
A few days later, Buck stole a Ford V-8 coupe so we could have our own car. He and Clyde were always arguing. They just couldn’t agree on anything. Clyde wanted to go back to Dallas and get W. D. Buck told him to leave the kid alone, that he was too young. Buck said he was sure that W. D. had wanted to get way from it all or he wouldn’t have kept on going after stealing the car in Ruston.
We mailed a letter to Mrs. Barrow and told her to write to us in Terre Haute, Indiana. We got a cabin there and stayed a few days until we heard from her. She told us she had heard that W. D. was home, but he had not come to see her.
We had already driven through ten or fifteen states. Now we started driving again. It was the same thing over and over. One time I was left in the coupe several miles outside of a small town while they went into town to rob a grocery store. I refused to take any part in any of the robberies. They could razz me about being afraid as much as they wanted to. I didn’t care. I refused to have anything to do with killing and robbing anyone. And besides, I was afraid Buck would be killed.
The three of them went to rob the grocery store. Buck told me what to do if he should be shot and killed, or caught. But if something ever happened to him, I would not have left him to go home until I was able to see him and do all I could for him. I was always afraid Clyde would just run away and leave him if there was trouble.
Part of the time I spent driving back and forth along the road where they had left me. But mostly I just sat in the parked car and cried while they were gone. The minutes seemed like hours. I prayed Buck would be sent back to me alive and unharmed. But my prayers were not always answered.
Then I saw Clyde’s car coming over a small hill. He was driving like mad and did not slow up when he got near. I knew something had gone wrong. I already had the motor running. When they passed they waved to me to follow. I di
d. As they passed, I saw two or three bullet holes in the back window. I immediately thought Buck had been shot because he was in the back. I was so excited for those few seconds that I am surprised I did not wreck the car. At one point, I slowed down a little but Clyde started getting way ahead of me. I stepped on the gas. The speedometer climbed to seventy-five, then eighty, and ninety. It topped out at ninety-five. I couldn’t make it go faster, but I knew I had to keep up with them. The only time I took my foot off the gas was when I had to turn a corner. Clyde kept turning down side roads. I almost turned the car over a couple of times, but managed somehow to straighten out and keep up with them.14 Finally, Clyde thought it was safe enough to stop just long enough for Buck to get in my car. He took the wheel and was I glad!
I saw blood on his hands and face and on his shoes. I almost went into hysterics and began asking what had happened and if he was hurt badly. He said he was okay. He had only been nicked in the little finger. His ring had saved the finger from being shot off. There was a dent in the ring from the buckshot. The blood on his face had come from his hand.
I asked him about his legs. He said he thought he had some buckshot in his hips and legs, but that they were not deep. He thought I could cut them out as soon as we stopped. I was relieved to know he wasn’t hurt badly. Buck told me Clyde had been shot too.
We stopped when we found a place to leave the sedan with the bullet holes. We put everything in the coupe and all crowded in. I knew we could not ride like this for long. They began talking and laughing about what had happened. They told me the whole story.
They had robbed a place and taken a hostage, walking the man out to the street.15 They told him to keep walking but the man ran into another store, got a shotgun, and started shooting at them. Bonnie was in the sedan, behind the wheel.16 Clyde jumped on the front fender and told her to start driving. She did, but almost left Buck. He caught the back fender and somehow jumped on the moving car. Clyde and Buck were shooting with their pistols but didn’t hit anyone.
The First State Bank of Okabena, Minnesota, 1933. “[T]he glass was all shot out of the coupe, but no one was hurt.” (Courtesy of the First State Bank, Okabena, Minnesota)
Clyde was lying across the hood. Bonnie said she could hardly see the road because of him climbing around on the car like a monkey. Bonnie kept laughing at Clyde because he looked so funny on the hood of the car. The man with shotgun was shooting at him. Most of the buckshot hit him in the hips. One hit his left arm but had only gone under the skin. They were well on their way before either of the boys got in the car.
We soon stopped to cut the buckshot out of Clyde and Buck and to treat their wounds. I didn’t like that job because I was so afraid I may cut too deep. The small surgical knife we had was very sharp. One false move would have done more harm than if we had left the shot in. I cut nearly all of the slugs out of Buck’s hips and legs. Two were so deep in the muscles of his leg that I could not get to them. Buck said they would eventually work their way out, to just leave them. He said they didn’t hurt much anyway. Clyde wouldn’t let Bonnie or Buck take the buckshot out of him. He said they could just stay in. And they did!
Rear of the old First State Bank building, Okabena, Minnesota, 2003. A gunfight erupted at the back door (lower left) on May 19, 1933, when the Barrow brothers robbed the bank. (Photograph by Esther L. Weiser)
It only took a few minutes to treat the wounds. Soon we were on our way again, driving through state after state. It was always the same thing over and over. Eventually they stole another car. They were going to use it to rob something then leave it, but we traveled in the second car for a few weeks. At least we weren’t so cramped anymore.
Then Clyde and Buck spotted another small-town bank and decided to try their luck again at bank robbery. Bonnie and I were left in the country with the new car. Clyde and Buck took the coupe into town. They stayed in the bank from about one o’clock in the morning until the employees arrived and it was time for the vault to open.17
While we were waiting for them, it began raining. Soon a hailstorm developed. The wind blew, lightning flashed, and the thunder was so loud you couldn’t hear anything else. Several times the car felt as though it would be blown over. Bonnie was so frightened she hardly knew what to do. She covered her head with pillows so she couldn’t see the lightning and started crying, saying she wanted to be home with her mother.18
I wasn’t afraid of storms at that time and laughed at her fears, as they had laughed at me for being afraid of machine gun fire. Of course, it wasn’t that I was afraid for myself; it was that I feared Buck would be killed. I couldn’t understand why Bonnie would be so afraid of storms. She didn’t act that bad when she was in a gun battle, but she feared God’s work more than machine-gun fire.19
The storm lasted about three hours as best as I can remember. The next morning the sun was shining bright. We waited and waited for what seemed like a hundred years, like the way someone would feel waiting to be hung.20 I had to wash my face and eyes many times to keep awake. We had tried to let each other sleep a few minutes at a time after the storm had stopped, but we couldn’t sleep much. We were so worried about Clyde and Buck.
When Clyde and Buck finally arrived, the glass was all shot out of the coupe, but no one was hurt.21 They left the coupe behind and got in the new car with us. We drove to another small town and stopped to eat breakfast. Afterward we filled the car with gas and oil. I sat on the floor most of the time. I was afraid of Clyde’s fast driving, especially when we had to make a lot of turns, so I stayed on the floor, where Buck first made me sit, so I couldn’t see.
They got about $100 from the bank, the most money they had made from one robbery since we had been with them. Clyde didn’t like robbing banks. He thought it was too risky.22 Instead, he liked robbing three or four filling stations, even if it meant having a bigger battle than he would have had at a bank. Buck told Clyde he would rather try and get enough money to live on for a couple of months, instead of having to rob something every day or two. But Clyde couldn’t see it that way.
We started for home, Dallas, to see Mrs. Barrow. And Clyde still wanted to get W. D. back with him. The country roads we drove on were very dusty. The car was soon filled with dust. We were so dusty you could hardly tell who we were. That afternoon they decided to stop and clean up. They found a small creek far enough from any town to be safe for a couple hours. We cleaned the car, took baths, and put on what few clean clothes we had. Then we drove to a nearby town to buy food and more clothes.
The next day they were going to get another car, or maybe two. Clyde spotted a Ford V-8 roadster; he wanted it. Buck told him they should try to get a sedan so we could all be in the same car in Dallas. But Clyde said he had been looking for a roadster like that for a long time and it was too good-looking to leave. So he took it and we followed. That afternoon we changed everything to the roadster. Buck drove the sedan into the woods, some distance from the highway, and set fire to it.23 They thought they had gotten everything out of it, but later found out they had either lost twenty-five or fifty dollars in silver, or had left it in the car.24
Buck hadn’t found a car for us yet, so we all had to ride in the roadster. We had not been riding more than a couple hours before Buck and Clyde got into an argument about it being so crowded in the car. Buck was driving to give Clyde a chance to rest. He also wanted to drive to relieve himself from the cramped conditions. We were having to sit in each others’ laps, but Buck could hardly stand it because his legs were shot up so badly. Then Bonnie started getting tired of sitting in Clyde’s lap, and he was getting tired of holding her. Buck started complaining about all of us having to ride that way. Soon the argument came to blows. I was sitting between them and got hit more than they did. I was also trying to get them to stop fighting but there wasn’t anything I could do.
Buck stopped the car and told Clyde to get out, that he would show him what he could do. But Clyde wouldn’t fight fair. He grabbed his shotgun, the one he h
ad killed most of his victims with. He had done that before, during an argument, so I knew he wouldn’t fight fair. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have tried to stop them from fighting because I thought Buck could have whipped him in a fair fight. But Buck would have never grabbed his gun. He didn’t want to kill Clyde. But Clyde would shoot him if he got mad enough, and he usually got that mad. But he didn’t shoot Buck that day, even though he said he was going to.25
If Clyde had shot Buck, he would have had to kill me too. Of course, I think that would have been a pleasure to him.26 Anyway, it looked as though Buck and Clyde could no longer get along. And sooner or later, Clyde would kill Buck, because Clyde wouldn’t fight without a gun.
When the argument was over, I asked Buck if we couldn’t ride in the rumble seat. He said it would be almost as bad, but I asked him to try. It was much better than all four of us riding in one seat.
7
Mother’s Day
THEY WANTED ME TO go Dallas alone on Mother’s Day. Originally, they had meant for all of us to drive in, but if we did that they couldn’t go by and see Bonnie’s mother. Bonnie and Clyde had a fight about that. She was going to shoot him, but Buck grabbed the gun out of her hand, threw it back in the car, and told her she was crazy. He always tried to separate them when they fought, especially if one of them got too rough with the other. And likewise, if Buck and I got into a fight, Clyde would butt in. But Buck and I never thought of guns when we got into an argument. If one of us had shot the other, the survivor would have committed suicide. Clyde and Bonnie would have probably done the same thing. They loved one another too much to live without each other.
So after the fight it was decided only one of us would go in to Dallas. Neither Clyde nor Buck could go and Clyde was afraid for Bonnie to go. So Buck said I could go. He knew I wouldn’t be afraid. He would worry about me and hated to see me go without protection, but he knew I would be careful and not be afraid. I dressed and got ready to make the trip.
My Life with Bonnie and Clyde Page 11