Fugitives- The True Story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker

by Emma Parker

  "If they haven’t already done it," Clyde growled, for both of us women were screaming by now and they could hear us. "This whole road is probably lined with cops. Shoot at the ditches."

  They bumped down the road, firing on each side as they went. At the bridge Clyde said: "You'd better pray, Bonnie. This is probably our last ride together." They both thought there would be more officers waiting for them there. The left tire had been shot away, and two bullets had passed through the car, one puncturing the spare, and the other entering Clyde's knee and going on through Bonnie's. They said they felt the impact but had no pain, and didn't know that they were wounded till later.

  Bumping along on three tires, they covered the four miles to the next highway. The officers were unable to follow them, because they had parked their cars a mile away, but Clyde couldn't know that. Meanwhile, we had been forced to sit helplessly by and witness the whole thing. There was just one good thing about our having been there. We had seen it all, and we knew that Clyde's car disappeared over that hill after the first blast from the guns.

  We went down to the court house later to look the car over after the officers had brought it in. The stories printed stated that a terrific gun battle had ensued between Clyde and Bonnie and Schmid and his men. The officers had ripped the car to bits with their guns, Clyde and Bonnie had fled, horribly wounded. Relatives were already making negotiations for funeral arrangements with local undertakers, since no person could have lived through the barrage put down on that car by officers that night.

  We got a grim laugh out of that. Bonnie said the only reason they abandoned the car was because one tire and the spare were flat. They thought they were being pursued by other officers in cars, so they stopped two men on the highway in an old rattle trap Ford and told them to get out. When the owner refused, Clyde showed some expert marksmanship and put a hole through his hat. Clyde took only the guns from the coupe, since they had no time to waste. Bonnie was trying to start the car but couldn't find the switch. She asked the owner to show her where it was, but he seemed to feel that that was carrying good nature too far, and refused. "I guess you'll have to really shoot him," Bonnie said, and the man changed his mind again. He showed her where to find the switch. Some people stopped and asked Clyde if he needed any help, but he was doing nicely as it was, and advised them to keep driving and not look back. They took the hint. They abandoned the Ford in Oklahoma four days later.

  It was very cold and the car was without windows. They had left their pillows and blankets in the other car, as well as their coats. They drove up a country lane, and came to a gate. Clyde got out to open it and fell.

  Bonnie went to help him and fell also. They opened the gate, crawled back into the car and sat awhile. "We must be hit somewhere," Clyde said. "I can't walk."

  "I can’t either," Bonnie said. "But I don’t hurt anywhere."

  They stopped at a country filling station to get gas. Bonnie said that all the while the man was filling the tank, he stood looking down at the running board as if fascinated. She knew there were no bullet holes in the car to give them away, but at last she leaned over to see what was holding the man's attention. A rivulet of blood was trickling from under the door. After Clyde drove off, she said: "We're bleeding a lot — that's why we're so weak. We'd better get to a doctor."

  They headed for Oklahoma. Here they received medical attention and stole another car with windows in it. They were back in Dallas on November 28, for Clyde had a score to settle. He was looking for Schmid's address. They drove to the Union Terminal and Clyde went in, presumably to use the 'phone. He took the telephone directory. Clyde was in a cold fury about the trap Schmid had laid for him.

  "It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d jumped us alone," he told us. "That’s legitimate. We expect that. It’s coming to us sooner or later. But to stage a gun battle with Bonnie’s mother and my mother sitting there directly in range of the bullets — to start shooting when I wasn’t ten feet away from their car — I’ll get him for that. Why, he could have killed them both, and I’m out to get him."

  That very night he and Bonnie drove out to Schmid's residence and waited till three in the morning, but either the sheriff was already safely in bed, or else he didn't come home that night. Clyde also waited for Bob Alcorn all one night without success. On another night he and Bonnie sat outside the county jail for two hours, checking on how many people came and went real early in the morning, and scouting the possibilities of snatching W. D. Jones from his cell, where he was dictating his memoirs to newspaper men.

  Clyde was really blind with rage. He hated cops, it's true, but he'd kidnapped many officers when shooting would have been a simpler way out of it, if he'd really wanted to get rid of them permanently. This deliberate stalking of Schmid and Alcorn was the first time we'd ever known him to try to get a cop. Nell was the one who talked him out of it. Smoot Schmid and Bob Alcorn can thank Nell Barrow for the fact that they are alive and walking the streets of Dallas. Clyde had determined to kill them both.

  Nell talked like a Dutch aunt to Clyde. There wasn't any use in arguing about the spot it would get Clyde in, because he didn't care. One murder more or less meant nothing to him. She put it up to him that others would be drawn into the trouble if he did this; that his family might become involved and held responsible. She pointed out that no possible good could result from his actions, and a lot of harm might come to innocent persons. They argued and argued. "But they might have killed mother!" Clyde yelled, getting red in the face. "They might have killed Bonnie's mother. Is that any way for men to fight — with women sitting by?" "They didn't kill anybody," Nell replied. "Let it skip, Clyde, let it skip."

  The idea of getting W. D. out of the Dallas County jail was a big laugh to Nell. "You'd never get inside the place, Clyde," she told him.

  "Oh, I don’t know," Clyde said grimly. "I don’t think it would be so hard. Harvey Bailey got out with a toy pistol. I think I could get in with a machine gun." Nell’s contention was that it wasn’t worth the effort, and that if W. D. were left alone long enough he would shoot up the place and walk out by himself. Clyde was out-talked, but his hatred for Schmid certainly never abated. Since Clyde had been ambushed by officers before and forced to fight his way out, yet had never sought to retaliate, it is reasonable to assume that he was earnest in his stand, and was furious at Schmid for violating what he termed his code.

  It was along about this time that Clyde purchased the blonde woman's wig, which he used to wear when going through towns. Bonnie said she would paint his cheeks and rouge his lips and put one of her hats on him. "He made the cutest girl," she told us. "Our only trouble was that two blondes caused a commotion in traffic. When we'd stop for a red light, men would start giving us both the glad eye, so finally Clyde had to have the wig dyed black."

  He used this means when forced to drive downtown, and for that reason often he and Bonnie went undetected through the principal streets of cities where their faces were well known and every traffic policeman was watching for them. They came and went in Dallas from the 28th of November till December 15th. Then we didn't see them till two days after Christmas, when they drove in with two gigantic baskets, beautifully packed, wrapped in cellophane, and tied with red ribbons and holly. They were filled with every kind of fruits, candies, and nuts imaginable. Bonnie said Clyde had them fixed especially for me and his mother at a fruit store in another state.

  I said, "Honey, I couldn't enjoy my Christmas dinner, thinking of you and Clyde."

  Bonnie laughed. "Why, mama, we had a lovely day," she told me. "We had two big turkey dinners in a cafe at Niles, Texas, and afterwards in Longview we bought a whole bunch of firecrackers — Roman candles, sparklers and some big cannon crackers. We went out in the country and spent the afternoon and evening shooting them off. We really had a grand time. You should not have worried."

  They probably did all the things she said they did, but they didn't have a grand time. Bonnie and Clyde couldn't have a grand t
ime anywhere, any more.

  We saw them several times within the next few days, and then Clyde drove down to San Angelo. I don't know all the places he stuck up during this fall and winter, because he and Bonnie were headlined on big things and many of the smaller robberies were not credited to them by the police. I do know that Clyde held up a Piggly Wiggly store in Texas somewhere, because Bonnie said that they had one nickle when he went in to scout, and he bought gum with it. He came back and said there were too many people inside for him to try it alone. Bonnie said: "Well, how'll you go in anywhere else now? We've no more money to stall with." So Clyde said: "I'll go in with a gun." He did and took $100 out of the till.

  Another time in November they robbed a refinery at Arp, Texas. When Clyde asked the men in the office for their money, one of them told him it was in a pipe in the wall. Clyde couldn't lift the pipe out, so he made them get it and give it to him. He put it in the car and drove out of town, took the money and threw the pipe away.

  They spent days following a man who collected money each week from the A. and P. stores in the oil towns. They thought they had his itinerary all mapped out, and planned to hold him up after he'd made his rounds. When they stopped him, they discovered he had only been to two towns, and he told them the joke was on them, because he never went to the same towns twice in rotation.

  We received an urgent message to meet them late one evening, and to bring some medicine for Bonnie, as she was sick. When we got out there, Bonnie was lying in the back seat of the car, looking like a ghost and crying. Clyde was holding her hand and looking mighty worried. "I don't know what's the matter with her," he said. "It seems to be something in her hip — not the one that was burned. It's the other leg."

  "I was sitting on the running board down at San Angelo this morning, washing my face, when it hit me all of a sudden," Bonnie told Us. "All at once I started screaming."

  "I’ll say she started screaming," Clyde put in. "And she’s been at it ever since. She couldn’t sit up and she’s screamed for hours. I brought her home, and I mean I’ve really brought her home if she doesn’t get better." It sounded like rheumatism, so Nell prescribed a certain liniment and Clyde wrote it down. We gave her some aspirin and she got a little better. Clyde had just bought a new suit, and he put on the coat and got out in the headlights for us to look it over. It was about a fourth of an inch too long and he kicked up a great row about it. "I might as well bought an overcoat and been done with it," he stormed. "I’m going to take it right back and make them alter it."

  Nell laughed at him. "What earthly difference does a quarter of an inch make?" she wanted to know. "Nobody ever sees it but Bonnie."

  "Well, if you think I’m going to drive around with Bonnie, looking like Santa Claus, you’re mistaken," he replied grimly. "And I’m going to dress my baby up tomorrow, too," he said.

  Bonnie stuck her head up from the back seat long enough to remark: "A couple of pairs of pajamas will about fix your baby up fine, Mr. Barrow, the way she's feeling right now. Or make it one pair of pajamas and a dollar's worth of arsenic. Are you going to go buy that medicine, or not?"

  Clyde drove off in a hurry and bought the medicine at Irving. Next day Bonnie was much better and Clyde was beaming. "Hi, Dr. Nell," he crowed. "That's the best damn medicine I ever saw. I'm going to buy a gallon and keep it in the car."

  That was January 14. We spent two hours with them. On Monday, January 16, Clyde made the Eastham prison farm rescue and freed Raymond Hamilton, but he never breathed a word to us about it the whole time we were with them. He never did tell us anything till after it was executed. We then got the whole story.

  Jimmie Mullens, a pal of Raymond Hamilton's, got out of Huntsville right after Christmas. Raymond had promised to pay him a thousand dollars if he'd help get him out of prison, so Mullens came to Dallas looking for a way to communicate with Clyde. He did not find this way through any of Clyde's or Bonnie's kin, but through another person who shall be nameless here. Raymond asked that Clyde leave guns under a certain small bridge near the Eastham farm. A trusty would bring them in and give them to Raymond. Saturday night after leaving us, Clyde and Bonnie picked up Mullens and drove to Huntsville, where they scouted over the lay of the land. While Clyde and Bonnie waited a mile and a quarter from the culvert, Mullens walked down and hid two forty-fives under the little bridge, according to arrangements.

  Sunday was visiting day at the prison. Some visitor brought word to Raymond that the guns were there and that Clyde would be at a designated spot, over a mile away, on Monday morning, waiting for Hamilton and his friend, Bybee. Clyde would bring clothes for them to change into, but he would not drive down by the farm.

  A heavy fog enveloped the country on Monday morning when the prisoners went to the fields. Raymond had the guns and had given one to Bybee. They made the break. There was no battle with machine guns, for Hamilton had no machine guns. Clyde and Bonnie did not put down a barrage to cover their getaway, for they were waiting a mile from the place.

  Three other prisoners made a break with Hamilton and Bybee, and ran for the spot where Clyde and Bonnie were waiting. Clyde's only knowledge of the break was the sound of the guns in the heavy air, and the men crashing through the underbrush toward him and Bonnie.

  As they neared the car, Hamilton, who was frightened of pursuit, yelled: "Let 'em have it, Clyde!" Clyde shot off about fifty rounds into the air in order to frighten pursuers, but there were none, as yet. Then Hamilton turned to the others and said: "Everybody go back except Bybee and me."

  Clyde leaned out of the car and yelled: "No. Everybody hang on that can. I'll take you out." The five men were Hamilton, Bybee, A. B. French, Joe Palmer, and Henry Methvyn. Clyde's car was a turtle back, and he had bought clothes for two men only. Joe Palmer was sick, so he was given one suit to change into, and sat between Clyde and Bonnie in the front. The other four were stowed in the turtle back. They drove through Weldon without rousing any suspicion and without being stopped. At Hillsboro they bought gas, and the voluble attendant asked if they had heard the news about Clyde and Bonnie. He then regaled them with a highly dramatic and colorful story: Clyde and Bonnie had driven boldly up to the farm, cached machine guns in the ditches around the fields, held off dozens of armed guards with their own deadly fire, killing several and wounding many others, and took five desperate prisoners from the very arms of the guards. All roads were blocked with guns and police; every car was being stopped. There was no doubt but that the whole desperate bunch would be caught before night.

  Clyde agreed with the man and drove off, heading for Houston. He had an idea that police in Dallas might just possibly be looking for him to come in. At Houston French left them. They drove on to Louisiana and four days later they arrived in Dallas to visit with us. Henry and Raymond were with them. Bybee had stolen a car and gone on his own. He was soon to be captured and returned to prison. I don't know where Joe Palmer was at this time. By this time thousands of officers all over Texas were watching for Clyde, and roads were often barricaded and I know they were watched. Yet Clyde came through their lines like a will-o'-wisp and arrived in Dallas January 20. We drove out to meet Clyde and Bonnie that night. We had kodak, films, and pictures with us in the car. Out on the highway — we were heading out the Northwest — three policemen called to Nell to halt. We were all petrified with fear. We knew if they searched the car and found the pictures, they'd become suspicious, and when arrested and our names learned, we'd be in a spot. The officers said: "Start up." Nell started. "Now, stop!" he yelled. She stopped. "Back up!" he howled. Nell backed. "Go on," he said. "Just testing your brakes." We shook with fright for miles.

  Raymond Hamilton was under obligations to Jimmie Mullens for $1,000. He and Clyde began planning to rob the Lancaster bank. In the meantime, Raymond wanted his girl, and she was sent for. We shall call her Alice, although that is not her name. Clyde didn't like her from the start. He said she was a stool pigeon. The boys waited a month before attempting the robbery at
Lancaster. Then, with Bonnie and Alice waiting in a car on a side road, Henry, Clyde, and Raymond stuck up the bank for $2,400. Divided three ways, this gave $800 to each, and was not enough to clear off Raymond's obligation to Mullens. Henry always rode in front with Clyde and Bonnie. There was only Raymond and Alice on the back seat, and Clyde saw Raymond taking the money in his rear vision mirror. He said nothing about it to Raymond, but he told Bonnie, and they watched the pair constantly from then on.

  Raymond was out after big dough. He was not content to rob filling stations and live from day to day. He wanted a lot of money and to live in style. When Clyde refused to rob any more banks for awhile, Raymond started in alone. He is credited, together with Clyde, of having stuck up the Mesquite Bank, March 3. Clyde said neither of them did it. Raymond did rob the Grand Prairie Bank and the bank at West. Clyde also had these two "hung on him," but told us he did not have anything to do with either.

  Soon after this series of hold-ups, it is to be presumed that Raymond paid Mullens off. At any rate, the five of them headed north to get out of the hot atmosphere which surrounded them in Texas. Up north, somewhere in Indiana, the three boys ordered suits and overcoats, all tailored and matching. They also bought hats, shoes, and gloves to suit. The two girls purchased some dresses and coats. They attended shows, ate in good restaurants, and enjoyed themselves as well as the Clyde Barrows and Bonnie Parkers of this earth can enjoy themselves.

  While they were gone, Clyde and Raymond broke up. There were many stories as to why they broke up, and the most romantic and colorful one is that it was over Bonnie Parker. It wasn't. They broke up over a girl, all right, but it was Raymond's girl, Alice. Clyde had never liked the girl, and he grew to like her less and less. After the split, Raymond wrote a letter to his lawyer in Dallas, for the press, in which he, in effect, requested all police officers to take note and put down in their books that Raymond Hamilton was a gentleman bandit, in no way to be connected with Clyde Barrow, desperado, and that he was not operating with Clyde any more. Raymond seemed to have overlooked that the desperado, Clyde Barrow, had delivered him from the Eastham farm, and he was plenty good enough for that.