My Life with Bonnie and Clyde (26 page)

“Daddy,” I said. “Did they hurt you any worse?”

Buck Barrow, on the ground at the feet of the man bending over. “Buck was asked who he was.” (From the Blanche Caldwell Barrow scrapbooks, courtesy of Rhea Leen Linder)

“No, Baby,” he said.

I touched his shoulder and he told me it hurt. (Later I learned Buck had been shot six times.)
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Then I was lifted by two men and taken away from Buck. I begged the men to let me ride in the same car with Buck, but they wouldn’t allow it. Buck was asked who he was. I was asked dozens of questions before we got to the car, but I refused to answer. However, Buck started answering, so I decided if he was going to talk then I may as well give them our identification card. I took it out of the billfold in my pocket and gave it to them. I did it mainly to make them stop bothering Buck. He was suffering so.

When we got to the doctor’s office in some small town nearby,
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I saw Buck lying on the floor. He was on a stretcher without a cushion under his head. An officer told me to lie down on a wicker divan in the doctor’s office. I wouldn’t think of lying on that divan when Buck was only a few feet away
from me, the doctor dressing his wounds. I decided these people must think I have no feelings, telling me to lie down and rest when my husband was so close to death.

I asked if Buck had been given any water. They told me he had. Then the doctor brought me a glass of water. I drank it and wanted more. The doctor handed me another glass. I thought it was water, but when I took a sip, I found it was alcohol. I couldn’t drink it, not even a swallow. “Little girl,” said the doctor. “You should take that. You are going to need it!” I knew he was right. But I couldn’t drink the alcohol so he gave me something else, a capsule. He also gave one to Buck. The doctor was very kind to me.
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I wanted to go to Buck but I was told to sit down. I asked Buck if he wanted a cigarette. He said, yes, to light him one. I did and took it to him. I was still crying. I couldn’t stop. I sat down beside Buck. He asked me to turn him over so the wound in his shoulder wouldn’t hurt so much.
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I did that and placed a cushion under his head. He told me to go back and sit down on the divan and stop crying because it worried him. I tried to stop crying. I told him I wanted to stop but it hurt my feelings when he told me to get up. I wanted to stay beside him as long as I could, but I didn’t want to worry him or hurt him in any way. Those words were his last to me. I never heard his dear voice again. The doctor wanted to look at my eyes and took me to another room. I kissed Buck before I left.

I never knew if Buck was mad because I gave myself up. I only did it so he could die in a comfortable, clean bed and not be torn to shreds by more bullets. It wasn’t that I wanted to live, or because I was afraid to die, but for his sake. Still, I know he must have suffered. He was hardly conscious of what he said.

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Mob

W
HEN
I
CAME THROUGH
the door, again handcuffs were snapped on my arms. They wouldn’t allow me to get near Buck, still lying as I had left him, there on the floor. I begged to go near him just once more but was dragged out by one officer. God only knows because I can’t explain the agony it caused me having to leave him. He did not answer when I called his name. I wondered if he had died while I was in the other room with that closed door between us. As they led me through the door I was crying and screaming, “Goodbye, Daddy. Goodbye.”
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The small town was swarming with people. It looked as if they were going to mob us. Women sneered and laughed at me and posed pointed, accusing fingers at me and came to the car asking silly questions, then laughing when I shrank away from them. The officer assigned to me, the one who drove the car that took me away from there, asked them to stop being so unkind. Of course, I didn’t expect anyone to be kind to me and I realized how most people felt, especially in small towns. The name “Barrow” struck fear in the minds of many because Clyde had little mercy for those who crossed him.
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The medicine the doctor had given me was beginning to take effect. One minute I would be screaming and crying, the next I just sat, staring ahead of me. My brain seemed blank. I could remember only one thing, that Buck had been taken away from me. One of the officers told me Buck wasn’t dead and that he would be taken to a hospital. He also said I may be able to see him there.

Blanche Barrow being transferred to the Polk County jail in Des Moines. “When I came through the door, again handcuffs were snapped on my arms.” (From the Blanche Caldwell Barrow scrapbooks, courtesy of Rhea Leen Linder)

I was taken to a small town
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and kept in the courthouse because they didn’t have a place in their jail for women. That afternoon I was taken to Des Moines, Iowa, and placed in jail. I didn’t care what they did to me. They got a doctor and he took most of the glass from my eyes.

The rest of that day and night, as well as the next day, is still a blank to me. I was almost insane with grief and begged everyone I saw to take me to Buck. I thought he may be calling for me. At night it seemed as though I could hear him calling.

Later, when I was left alone in a cell, I tried to wash the blood out of my trousers and hair. But my right arm and hand were both so sore I could
hardly use them. I must have looked frightful. My hair was matted with blood and my face and eyes were swollen from glass and lead. I didn’t even have a comb. But I was thankful. After all, the only thing I really wanted was Buck. When I went to bed, I soon cried myself to sleep.

Weapons recovered in Dexfield Park. “Clyde had little mercy for those who crossed him.” (From the Blanche Caldwell Barrow scrapbooks, courtesy of Rhea Leen Linder)

I was awakened by a matron. She told me to get up and get dressed, that I was to go to the office. I asked what time it was. She told me two o’clock. I couldn’t believe I had slept that long. When I was taken to an office downstairs, a bunch of officers were waiting for me there. I was told they were from Platte City, Missouri, and Kansas City and that they were going to take me back to Missouri. I didn’t want to go back to Missouri. I wanted to stay there, as close to Buck as I could.

Some of the officers were not at all kind to me. Some were very kind. But as I said before, the last thing I expected was kindness from anyone. I didn’t think anyone would understand my side of the story, even if they did believe
it. No one would accept that I stayed with my husband simply because I loved him too much to allow him to go anyplace without me, even when it meant death or imprisonment for me.

Blanche Barrow after being fingerprinted at the Polk County jail, July 24, 1933. She weighed in at eighty-one pounds, down thirty-three and a half pounds in six months. “Later, when I was left alone in a cell, I tried to wash the blood out of my trousers and hair.” (From the Blanche Caldwell Barrow scrapbooks, courtesy of Rhea Leen Linder)

After the officers spoke with me they all left the room, except for one man. He hadn’t said much to me, but when he did speak he was kind, just like David R. Clevenger, the Platte County prosecuting attorney, and Constable Tom Hulett. Others had been cruel, although I didn’t blame them for the way they felt. The man introduced himself. His name was Holt Coffey. He was the Platte County sheriff. He and his son had both been wounded in the gun battle of July 19.
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I turned to face him.

“Well,” I said. “Why don’t you start cursing me? You are the one who got hurt. Don’t you feel like killing me, like most of the rest feel?”

Blanche Barrow leaving Des Moines. “The trip back to Missouri was one of the most miserable I had ever made.” (From the Blanche Caldwell Barrow scrapbooks, courtesy of Rhea Leen Linder)

“I don’t work that way,” he said, shaking his head. “I try to be kind to everyone.”

I would learn that Holt Coffey stuck by his word.

When they wanted me to sign extradition papers, I refused unless I could see Buck. They said Missouri would get me anyway. Then one of the men from Platte City promised that I would be taken to the hospital the next day to see Buck. So I signed the papers, even though I couldn’t see well enough to read what they said. I’d have signed most anything to be near Buck. The next afternoon I was turned over to the Missouri officers without getting to see Buck.

Mr. Clevenger came to the jail cell to get me. Another officer, whose name I don’t know, was with him. He wanted to question me, but I had little to say. I said I couldn’t remember much, which was the truth, but he only thought I was lying. My mind was a blank. Even when I was alone and had tried to remember some of the things I had been asked about, I couldn’t. For instance, I had been questioned a lot about where we were on the Fourth
of July, but try as I may, I couldn’t remember.
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I still don’t remember a lot. Eventually Mr. Clevenger took pity on me and told the officer he believed I was telling the truth. So, the officer stop grilling me.
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