by Emma Parker
During all this hectic time I had not seen my brother since the day at my mother's when I questioned him about the Bucher murder at Hillsboro. I didn't believe that Clyde had killed those men at Atoka. I didn't believe any of the things I'd been hearing and reading in the papers. This may seem ridiculous to the reader, but it's true. My mother told me that Clyde had been coming in almost every night with Bonnie, and I wanted to see him very badly. I began driving out each evening, trying to catch him, but always I got there just after he had gone. He and Bonnie were staying in the abandoned farm house near Grand Prairie, I knew, but I didn't dare go out there.
One evening right after the Atoka business my mother phoned me that she was cooking red beans for dinner, and asked me to come over. Red beans was always our code message that the kids would be in, so I drove out to the house in West Dallas and waited till 10 o'clock without success. I was alone in my car, and it was dark on that West Dallas road. A little after ten I got up and said I'd better go home. I had been driving but a few minutes before a car came up behind me and ran alongside and tried to curb me. I cut around quickly, my heart beating fast.
The car caught up with me again, and again tried to curb me. This time, in a panic, I shoved the gas down to the floor and tried to outrun the car. Again the pursuing automobile came even with me, and I saw that the driver was motioning me to turn out over the viaduct. "Fat chance!" I thought to myself, and put on all speed. Finally, seeing I had no intention either of stopping or turning off, a man with flaming red hair leaned from the other car and said, "For God's sake, Sis, you dumb egg!" It was Clyde and Bonnie.
I pulled over then, my knees still shaking, and parked side by side. "Great heavens," I gasped, "you scared me to death! I thought you were a hijacker, Clyde."
Smiling impudently, his dimple working, Clyde replied: "Hell, I am."
I climbed out of my car and started to step up on the running board, but Clyde grabbed at me and yelled, "Look out, Sis!" My nerves were badly shaken, so I jumped back, exclaiming, "Good, Lord, no! I mustn't get my finger prints on this car."
Clyde roared at that. "If you're not the biggest coward I ever saw," he told me. "Finger prints, my eye! I was yelling at you because we've been on country roads and the running board has mud a foot deep on it. Finger prints! You sound like a detective thriller." "Where in the world did you get that carrot top," I demanded. His hair was the most flaming red you ever saw.
He nodded to Bonnie beside him. "She dyed it for me," he stated. "And, boy, did she burn the hide off? I've got blisters as big as a quarter all over my scalp." "I guess I used too much ammonia," Bonnie told me. She looked very tired and worn, and was without her usual sparkle. "But he wanted it red, Nell, and he's got it red."
"He sure has," I agreed. "You can spot that a mile away."
"What I need is a wig," Clyde went on, talking very fast and trying to be funny. "A woman’s wig to put on over my own hair so I won’t be recognized by the law. A blonde wig would be good. Then I could pass for Bonnie’s sister. Wouldn’t that be a howl, honey?" Bonnie didn’t answer his smile. She made a sort of snuggling gesture against his shoulder and sighed. "Nothing’s very funny the way I’m feeling tonight," she said. It was obvious she was very low in her mind about something.
"Clyde," I began, "what about that Atoka killing? Were you there?"
He sobered up at that. "I was there," he agreed. "You mean — you mean — you killed those men?" I asked. "You killed them both?"
He shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted. "It's an even break whether I did it or Raymond. We were both shooting all the time."
I got sick at the pit of my stomach. "Now you've really done it," I cried. "Now you're wanted for murder, Clyde." I began to cry.
"I was anyway — for one I didn’t do — the Hillsboro job," Clyde insisted. "What’s the difference?"
"All the difference in the world," I told him. "You might have proved you didn’t do that at Hillsboro." I hadn’t a handkerchief, and the tears were all over my face.
"Not with my record, I couldn’t," he said stubbornly. "The law wouldn’t have believed me. I was with those boys, you know."
"But — but you might give up and just get a sentence," I suggested.
"I might give up and just get the chair," he mocked. "But I won’t. No, sir, it’s set now, Sis, and you might as well stop making a row every time you see me. We’ll have a little while longer together — Bonnie and me — isn’t that right, honey?"
Bonnie nodded her yellow head against his shoulder. "Together," she agreed.
"Atta girl," Clyde said, and patted her arm. "A few years — maybe just a few months — then —" He made a funny sound with his mouth and grinned at me. "Out — like Lottie’s eye." He shifted gears.
I rubbed my face with my fist and leaned and kissed them both, perhaps for the last time — I didn't know. "Where are you going now, Clyde?"
He made an indefinite gesture. "Driving," he said. "Just driving from now till they get us. Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Mexico — Texas, always Texas — where we were born. Don't look so glum, Sis. You'll be hearing from us. We'll be seeing you." He kissed me once more — for luck, he said — the impudent grin again on his face. Then, with one arm about Bonnie beside him, he stepped on the gas and took to the trail.
On August 14, we were hearing from them again, by way of the newspapers, for Clyde and Bonnie, just driving, had gone to pay Bonnie's aunt in New Mexico a visit, and had kidnapped an officer, a trick for which they later became famous. Half a dozen times within the next eighteen months Clyde kidnapped one or two policemen and took them for all-day rides before turning them loose.
Mrs. Parker Relates This Story
Bonnie's aunt lived outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico, and when Clyde and Bonnie arrived to visit her, with Raymond Hamilton accompanying them, Millie received them with the open-armed hospitality of the farm. I noticed many stories which stated that my sister was afraid of Clyde and Bonnie and turned them over to the police, but there is no truth in this statement. I have talked with Millie about the whole thing several times and she was not aware that Clyde and Bonnie were in trouble. You must remember that this was in the summer of 1932. Clyde had been out of prison but a few months, and was not as well known then as he was before he died. Many of the robberies which were chalked up against him after his death were not placed against him at this time, and the Atoka murder was the only big thing so far. Millie lived in the country and did not keep up with the crimes of the South. Even if she had known, she wouldn't have turned them in, she told me, though she might have asked them to leave.
The whole trouble was caused by the stolen car the three were driving. They had come through Carlsbad with it and the sheriff, Joe Johns, had sighted it and become suspicious. The kids spent that night with my sister, and the next morning early — it was Sunday — while my sister was in the garden back of the house gathering vegetables for dinner, one of the boys took the car and went into town after ice. Here Johns again saw the car and noted the license number, which was the same as that of a car recently reported stolen. He got his car and followed them back to the farm.
All of them were in the house when Johns drove up, as they were getting ready to make ice cream. The guns were locked in the car, because they had not wanted to alarm my sister's family by a display of fire arms, so when the sheriff came to the door and knocked, the boys had no weapons of any sort. However, there was a shot gun in the house belonging to the men of the family.
Bonnie went out on the porch to answer the sheriff's knock, and he said he wanted to ask about the car in the yard. Bonnie replied that the boys were dressing, but would be out in a few minutes. Johns strolled back over to the car and began trying to open the place where the guns were. Clyde and Raymond seized the shotgun, ran out the back door, and got the draw on Johns before he knew what it was all about. They yelled for Bonnie to come quickly and get in the car. In the excitement, the shot gun went off, but the shot was wild and n
obody was hurt. My sister said the first she knew of the whole affair was when she heard Clyde yelling: "Honey, get in the car, quick!" And then the gun went off. When she reached the front of the house, the car was already roaring down the road.
Late that afternoon Sheriff Johns was telephoning from San Antonio to tell the Carlsbad officials he was o.k. By that time, half the state was looking for him, and the body of a dead hitch-hiker had been brought in as his. However, Johns was not hurt, and was forced only to the inconvenience of going back home where he came from, after a thousand-mile dash across the country. Johns was exhausted from his strenuous trip, but apparently Clyde was not, for the three did not stop.
At Victoria the next day they abandoned the car they had and stole another — a Ford V-8. Clyde always preferred this type of car because the steel bodies were good protection in smash-ups, not to mention their resistance under gun fire. The news of the stolen car was broadcast, also the direction Clyde had headed, and a posse of men laid a trap for them over the Colorado River near Wharton. By this time, the sedan had been augmented by a Ford coupe. Clyde was driving the coupe with Bonnie beside him, and Raymond was following in the sedan.
The officers' plan was to wait till Clyde was well onto the bridge, then the men were to rise up before him and behind him and block him both ways. The officers had not counted on two things: They had not known there would be an extra car, and they could not know that Clyde was as sensitive as a jungle cat to danger. As Clyde and Bonnie dashed down the road toward the bridge, this sixth sense of Clyde's worked automatically. Before the astonished officers could even move from their places of concealment, Clyde swung the coupe around in the middle of the wide road, swept by Raymond's speeding sedan, and headed back the other way as swiftly as he had come.
The officers leaped up out of the ground at this, all around the sedan, and bullets began to fly, but Raymond turned in this hail and flew back after Clyde in the coupe. Several officers who sought to stop him were almost run down. The officers raced for their cars and gave chase, but Clyde and Bonnie had changed to the sedan with Raymond, abandoning the coupe, and with Clyde at the wheel, there wasn't a chance of catching them. They disappeared as if the ground had opened up and swallowed them.
Clyde and Bonnie were making themselves famous or infamous, depending on the viewpoint. Their daring escapes, their breath-taking speed, the boldness with which they came and went, were becoming legends up and down the land. Pretty Boy Floyd was crowded into oblivion; Machine Gun Kelly was an also-ran. Bonnie and Clyde had the center of the stage and were to keep it till they died.
Nell Again Continues the Story
Right after the escape at the bridge, Raymond Hamilton decided he wanted to go home to Michigan and visit with his father. Clyde and Bonnie took him. This was September 1, 1932. After staying in Michigan a week or so, Bonnie and Clyde started out "just driving" again and left Raymond up there to get his visit out. The two kids drifted down into Kansas City and played around awhile, going to shows, eating at the best restaurants, having their nails done, buying some clothes. Bonnie got a permanent, too. They stayed in Michigan, Kansas, and Missouri till the last of October, and we had a great many letters from them during this time, stating that all was well. Of course, these letters were not signed.
In the meantime, Raymond's desire to dance had come over him again, and he had begun stepping out quite a bit, which would have been all right, except that he danced once too often, talked to a girl too much, and got turned in. He and a boy named Gene O'Dare were arrested and brought back to Texas for trial. Raymond's trial netted him the 263-year sentence, and he was sent to Huntsville again. He had been convicted of the Neuhoff Packing Co. job, the Hillsboro murder and various bank robberies. When Clyde heard of Raymond's sentence, he sent word that he'd get his pal out of Huntsville within a year, and he did.
By this time, every robbery, hold-up, or murder committed in the South was attributed to Clyde and Bonnie, no matter if they were a thousand miles away when it happened. Since, as Clyde had pointed out to me, he was already slated for the chair if caught, he made no effort to clear himself of charges that were not true, while, we his kin, said nothing, no matter what we knew.
Along in October an old man who kept a grocery store in Sherman, a Mr. Hall, was brutally murdered. A blonde-haired girl was reported to have wielded the death weapon, while her companion stood by. Just who did kill poor Mr. Hall is something I have no way of knowing, but Clyde and Bonnie weren't even in Texas at the time. They were in Kansas City enjoying the movies and having a breathing spell from dodging the bullets of the officers.
In fact, it was a few days after this killing, driving along through Kansas, that Bonnie turned suddenly to Clyde and said plaintively: "I want to see my mama, honey." Bonnie told me later that Clyde just swung the car around without a word and headed for Texas. Early next morning they drove past my mother's home and pitched out an empty bottle with a note in it, telling us where to meet them. That was always their signal to us if there were people around so that they didn't dare stop.
Mrs. Parker was working and couldn't get off till closing time. Bonnie moped around all afternoon because she couldn't see her mama. She announced that she was going right down on Lamar Street where her mother lived, just as soon as it was dark. Clyde was always teasing Bonnie about being so crazy over her mama, but whenever she'd get a homesick spell, he'd always bring her home if he could.
"It’s the only way I can live with her, Sis," he explained. "She’ll start crying and simply float me out of the car when she wants her mama, so I just put on a bathing suit and drive her in. Cops? Hell, no, I’m not afraid of them picking me up — unless they got a sight of Bonnie’s face — then they’d likely pinch me for wife beating."
We asked him about the killing of the grocer, Hall, at Sherman. "We've been in Kansas for the past three weeks," he said, "so we couldn't have done that. They just hung it on us for luck. But what's the difference, now? They've got to hang it on somebody, you know."
It was Halloween night, I remember, and about dusk Bonnie wouldn't wait any longer. She said she was going to see her mama. Clyde drove her over and circled the block while she ran in. It was the first time Mrs. Parker had seen Bonnie since the 6th of August, and she saw her about five minutes, only long enough to kiss her and tell her she was well.
We didn't see them any more till after Christmas. They went up to Carthage, Missouri, and rented a tourist camp about ten miles from town. Clyde had two other boys with him now, Hollis Hale and Frank Hardy, both of Dallas. They committed minor robberies in Missouri for the next month, but were not caught or even suspected, for police were looking for Clyde and Bonnie in Texas and Oklahoma, and didn't dream they'd go so far north as this, though often they went further, clear to Michigan and Illinois.
In the last day of November they decided to rob the Oronogo Bank. Clyde told me later they had sent Bonnie in to look things over several days before. Clyde still wasn't taking her with him on any of his actual hold-ups. This time he left her about five miles out of town to wait, and he and the boys went in to raid the bank. Their finances were in a bad way, Clyde said — down to about $2, I believe — and they figured that the Oronogo Bank would furnish them enough to get by on for the rest of the winter. They left Hollis in the car out in front, and Clyde and Frank Hardy went into the bank with drawn guns.
This affair didn't turn out as expected. Evidently bank officials hadn't been so dumb as the boys had figured, and had become suspicious of Bonnie's visit. Anyway, they were ready for them.
"Gosh, Sis, they began popping at us the minute we got inside the door," Clyde told me afterwards. "We’d have beat it right then, if we hadn’t needed money so bad. But as it was, I held them off and Frank made a dive for the cage and scooped up what he could get his hands on. Then we left in a hurry, let me tell you!"
The paper stated that they got $ 115, but when the money was counted, Frank insisted he had only $80. This, they split th
ree ways and went back to the tourist camp outside of Carthage.
Immediately upon their arrival both Frank and Hollis began to make excuses to get to town, saying they'd better go and buy some ammunition. They left and never did come back, and when Clyde read the papers, he found out he'd been double-crossed. The thief had stolen from the thief. He and Bonnie had about $25 for all their troubles.
Their living expenses were always high, because they were constantly on the go, and with luck they had only enough to last a week. More was necessary, so Clyde went hunting another bank to rob. Since he must rob it alone, he was careful about the one he chose. He made elaborate scouting plans, looking over the situation, and finally selected a little bank in a small town in Missouri. Leaving Bonnie to guard the door with the car and give warning, Clyde entered the place boldly, carrying his gun.
An old gray-haired man was sitting disconsolately in a chair in the comer of the bank, apparently the only person about. Clyde said politely: "I don't want to hurt you, but I've got to have your money. Hand it over."
The old man cocked a grizzled eyebrow at Clyde and made no movement, either of surprise or terror, although a rather sardonic grin did begin to spread over his grizzled features. "Son," he said, "I wisht you'd put that gun up and stop trying to be so gol-damed funny. This bank's been closed down four days.' There ain't no money in it. That's what's the matter with it."
Clyde, whose sense of humor came now to apply to such grim things, since that was what his life was made of, related this to me with shouts of laughter when he came home again. He seemed to consider it a great joke on himself.
He and Bonnie got in this time around the first of December, I recall, because W. D. Jones, a kid Clyde had played around with in boyhood, was waiting at our house for Clyde to come in. He wanted to "go out" with Clyde, but Clyde refused point blank. " You're too young, W. D.," he said. "You stick around here where the going's good and safe. If you go out with me, you'll get in a lot of trouble and land in jail."