Pictured above is the Kemp Calaboose (freestanding single cell often seen in small towns) where Bonnie and Ralph were held overnight. The plaque reads: "Built in the early 1900's the calaboose was used to jail offenders of the law. It is legended that Bonnie (of Bonnie and Clyde fame) and one other member of the Barrow Gang were held here in 1932." Today, the single jail cell still stands as a roadside attraction in Kemp, Texas.
Bonnie and Ralph spend the night in a one-room jail cell:
Sometime after dark Clyde slipped into Kemp. The distant echo of random gunfire erupting from the creek bed two miles away had ceased. Clyde knew then that Ralph and Bonnie had been captured, perhaps even killed. Sliding behind the wheel of an unguarded Magnolia gas truck, he sped away, later switching to a shiny new Ford V-8. Unarmed and exhausted, he drove to West Dallas to tell Blanche and his brother L. C. about the gun battle and then pressed on to Lake Dallas in search of his old gang. Back at Cedar Creek Ralph and Bonnie were engulfed by a flood of local citizens. The whole town of Kemp had turned out for a look at the pair of desperadoes. “Why, that’s ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd!” exclaimed a deputy, watching excitedly as Ralph was pulled from the ditch. “I once seen him up in Oklahoma.” Ralph, clutching his bloody, swollen arm, was led past the crowd of onlookers to a nearby grocery store to await the arrival of Sheriff Barnes. Bonnie walked at his side. Both seemed cool, reserved, and quite unconcerned by their arrest. Later, the sheriff transferred the prisoners to Kemp and locked them in the tiny, one room jail a block south of town.
"You ain't going to put that little girl in the same cell with that boy, are you?" cried a distraught woman. "Ain't going to make no difference," said Sheriff Barnes. "Them two done spent all night and most of the day in the woods together." Laughter filled the air. "Boss" Ballard was trying to make the most of having been the one who shot Ralph in the arm. "I could have picked the buttons of them overalls of yours," said Ralph as he tumbled in a painful heap on the dirt floor of the jail. "Hell, I was shooting over all of y'all's heads, just trying to scare y'all off." Bonnie examined the pairs of eyes that peered through each of the cell's two small windows. Outside, thirty armed men surrounded the boxlike structure. Torches bathed the scene in an eerie light. “You’d better get a doctor down here,” shouted Bonnie, angrily. “This boy’s in pain.” A physician stepped forward. It was Dr. Scarsdale, the man whose car Bonnie, Clyde, and Ralph had stolen earlier. “You kids come through town, stealing cars and getting yourselves shot up,” said the doctor, “and then you expect me to patch you up. Well, I won’t do it. I just won’t do it.”
“Hey, Doc?” said Ralph. “You didn’t, by any chance, take that Hippocratic oath, now did you?” Scarsdale turned red with anger and stormed away. Ralph’s shattered left arm would remain unattended until the following morning, April 20, when Sheriff Barnes moved his prisoners to the more substantial county jail at Kaufman. The arm was finally treated twelve hours after the shooting. Later in the day voices began filtering up from the first floor, followed by footsteps in the stairwell. “Somebody here to see you,” the old jailer announced, mounting the landing. Blanche and L. C. were behind him. “Clyde’s gone to Denton to fetch them other fellows,” L. C. said as soon as the jailer left. “It won’t be long now. Where’re they keeping Bonnie?” “Downstairs,” Ralph replied. “They ain’t got nothing on her—I told the DA I’d take the rap if they’d let her go. He told me they probably wouldn’t be charging her with nothing anyway—I don’t know why they’re still holding her.” Blanche and L. C. hurried downstairs to see Bonnie. Ralph settled back to wait for Clyde. His wait would be a long one.
Arriving at Lake Dallas, Clyde located Ted and Johnny. Jack and Fuzz, however, had dropped out of sight. Moreover, there had been a delay in the Celina raid, originally planned to coincide with Ralph’s and Clyde’s April 18 trip to Tyler. As a result, no additional guns had been obtained. Clyde had to act fast. At 11:45 P.M. on April 20 Clyde accompanied Ted and Johnny to Celina. Guns and ammunition were stolen, and the boys returned to Dallas to test out the weapons in a forest. The repeated shooting roused the suspicion of a farmer who was working less than a mile away. Denton County Sheriff was notified, and a posse was quickly assembled. Clyde and the boys heard the muffled voices nearby. They took as many weapons as they could and slipped into the thicket. While the posse were examining the weapons that were left behind, a vehicle moved into range. Jack and Fuzz were in the vehicle and were arrested by the posse without a fight. Meanwhile, Ralph was transferred to Wichita Falls, to face indictment for kidnapping. The following day Blanche and Clyde drove to Kaufman with the idea of raiding the jail there and freeing Ralph. They discovered, however, that he had already been transferred. They discussed helping Bonnie escape but realized she would probably be released anyway and decided not to risk it. Bonnie ended up serving two months in jail. Upon being indicted, Ralph pleaded guilty on all counts and took a 15 year sentence. Before long he was back in Huntsville prison. Inside the walls he struck a friendship with Clyde's older brother Buck.
It was decided that Clyde should avoid Dallas for a while after getting chased by police cars. The following evening, April 18, 1932, Ralph dropped off Clyde east of town, and drove on alone to pick up Bonnie. Bonnie was in a good mood that evening, bubbly and talkative. As she and Ralph proceeded east through town to pick up Clyde, she spoke of her family and how she hated serving lunches to the politicians and businessmen downtown. She also disliked the lawmen who frequented the cafe.
“Laws” she called them, imitating Clyde’s West Dallas slang. “They made him what he is today,” she said. “He used to be a nice boy. Now he’s just an ex-con without a job. This town’s good at keeping boys like him down,” she added, gazing at the fresh new office buildings downtown and thinking of the wealth they represented. “Why even try?”
Bonnie was articulate, thoughtful, and witty. Ralph liked her a lot, but he could never understand her attraction to the outlaw life. She hated guns and rarely participated directly in any crime. She had been immensely popular in school, and remained so throughout her years as a waitress in three downtown area restaurants. There was hardly a businessman, county official, or lawman that didn’t know and like her. Despite her ability with people, however, Bonnie felt somehow shut out, inferior. “I’m just a loser—like Clyde,” she confided to Ralph. “Folks like us haven’t got a chance.”
Clyde, Raymond and Ralph fall asleep behind the wheel while traveling to Kansas:
In Okabena, Minnesota, the outlaws discovered what looked like the perfect bank—situated on the main square, with plenty of roads leading out of the area. However, when they started to explore the roads and rehearse an escape plan, they found too much snow and ice on the ground to make the job feasible. With Ralph at the wheel, the would-be Minnesota bank robbers headed south toward Lawrence, Kansas, a town they’d noticed the day before. It was more than 350 miles away, but the Texans decided to drive straight through. Sometime after dark Ralph began to get drowsy. He glanced at his companions. Both were sound asleep. “I’ll try to make it to some all-night diner and tank up on coffee,” he thought to himself.
Suddenly the car started vibrating furiously, rocking up and down as it thundered through an open field. “I’m awake. I’m awake!” shouted Ralph. Clyde and Raymond opened their eyes just in time to see an endless line of young Iowa corn stalks crashing beneath the running boards. “You’re in a cornfield, Ralph,” laughed Clyde. “You sleepy or something?” “I’ll take over for awhile,” said Raymond. Ralph crawled into the back seat while Raymond maneuvered through the corn rows in search of the highway. Before long, the night riders were on their way south, the rhythm of the road lulling Ralph fast to sleep. Within minutes, however, he felt himself being jostled about. A series of bumps, followed by the screeching sound of barbed wire dragging across the body of the car, snatched him rudely from sleep. “I’m awake!” announced Raymond. “I’m awake.”
“Too late,” said Clyde, “we’re in another damn cornfield—let me drive.” Clyde slid behind the wheel, backed through the demolished barbed wire fence, and drove onto the highway. Soon, the car was hurtling along at high speed—Clyde’s foot buried in the accelerator. Ralph felt his eyes closing. He was falling back to sleep. Suddenly, a sharp jolt wrenched him from yet another comfortable position. The familiar sound of snapping wire and crashing stalks of corn told him they’d driven into their third cornfield of the evening. “I’m awake, I’m awake!” exclaimed Clyde excitedly. The car rocked to a sudden stop more than a hundred feet from the road. Considering the speed at which Clyde usually drove, it’s a wonder the car had not overturned, killing everyone inside. The three men decided they had seen enough cornfields for one night. Concealing themselves in a nearby clump of trees, the weary travelers stretched out beneath the stars for a bit of rest.
The short-lived "Lake Dallas Gang" formed by Clyde and Ralph Fults:
As soon as Clyde found work, the Dallas police began rousting him for suspicion again, and the hired/fired cycle repeated itself. Further temptation for Clyde to give up on going straight arrived in the person of his Eastham pal Ralph Fults. Ralph figured they would organize the dramatic Eastham prison break they’d talked about while swinging axes on the farm woodpile. The duo recruited Raymond Hamilton and set out to commit their first robbery together after dark on March 25, 1932. They didn’t have to go far. The Simms Oil Refinery was just a few blocks down Eagle Ford Road from the Barrow family garage in West Dallas. Clyde picked the fume-spewing target. He swore to his cohorts that a Simms employee had told him the company would have a large amount of payroll cash in its safe on the night of the 25th. It would be simple to sneak there under cover of darkness, cut through the chain-link fence surrounding the refinery, overpower a guard if one happened to be there, crack the safe, stuff their pockets with loot, and roar out of Dallas with their haul. Clyde anticipated a large take, perhaps as much as several thousand dollars.
But then Clyde’s foolproof plan imploded—the safe was empty. The would-be thieves bolted. Clyde’s initial attempt to lead his newly formed criminal gang had been an abject failure, and Raymond Hamilton let him know it repeatedly. Though he was still only 18, Raymond had been supporting himself through petty crime for several years. He’d begun by stealing and reselling bicycles, then graduated to stealing cars. After the Simms fiasco, Raymond wanted the gang to focus on automobile theft. The individual takes would be much smaller than they might be from robbing banks or businesses, he argued, but at least you didn’t have to wonder whether there was money in a safe. Ralph and Clyde had a different plan. Their immediate goal was conducting the long-planned Eastham Prison Farm break, and for that they’d require a lot more money than they could earn by fencing stolen cars. To successfully pull off the Eastham raid, they knew, the gang would need additional members and a lot more firepower than the cheap weapons they’d used in the Simms break-in. Ralph had some specific acquaintances in mind as recruits. He knew several crooks living in and around Denton who he believed would make enthusiastic, competent partners. But there was no sense asking them to join up without enough powerful assault weapons to overwhelm the prison guards.
The gang’s current arsenal consisted of the cheap handguns that were readily available anywhere, plus a couple of shotguns. For the Eastham raid, Clyde and Ralph also wanted bulletproof vests and a large supply of ammunition. So Raymond was overruled; the gang would try to make its Eastham budget in one grand haul. Ralph preferred banks to small businesses. Even though Clyde and Raymond had never robbed a bank, after the Simms blunder they were in no position to disagree. The trio staged a series of small stickups in and around Dallas to gather some traveling money. They couldn’t stay in the area long. After the Simms break-in, the West Dallas cops were on the lookout for their old target Clyde Barrow. The decision was made to drive north and find a bank to rob somewhere far away from the local heat. In Illinois, Raymond left the gang after discovering how much money a bank robbery can get him. He was no longer interested in their plan and wanted to continue robbing banks. Clyde and Ralph drove back to Texas in early April where they met with 4 local crooks—Johnny Russell, Jack Hammett, Ralph Allsup, and Ted Rogers. The quartet was enthusiastic about the proposed Eastham raid, probably because they’d all done at least some local jail time. The new group called itself “the Lake Dallas Gang” after the area waterway. Clyde thought 6 assailants would be enough to pull off the raid. At night there were 4 picket guards outside Eastham’s Camp 1 dormitory. If the Lake Dallas Gang could get the drop on them, they could then break the prisoners out of the dorm before the other guards sleeping on the second floor could wake up and stop them. While many inmates had tried to escape from Eastham, nobody had ever attempted to orchestrate a break from the outside. Eastham was considered too remote and forbidding. That meant the gang should have the advantage of complete surprise. What would happen to most of the escaped prisoners afterward apparently was not discussed, beyond helping as many as possible get clear of Eastham and arming them with the guards’ captured weapons. They would then have to be responsible for maintaining their own freedom. But Clyde was especially concerned that Aubrey Scalley would be broken out. He was grateful to Scalley for taking the rap in the Ed Crowder muder.
In preparation for the raid, Clyde, Ralph, and their new partners found an isolated spot by Lake Dallas to test the guns and vests they’d bought in Illinois. They were joined by another recruit known only as Red, who was an acquaintance of Jack Hammett’s. The tests near the lake were less enjoyable. The vests, probably propped against trees, were perforated by every bullet striking them, and many of the guns wouldn’t fire at all. The pawnbroker had bilked Ralph and Clyde. To get money to buy a replacement arsenal, the gang members planned a simultaneous April 11 stickup of two banks located in Denton’s main square, only to be scared off that morning when they saw two Texas Rangers sitting in a car parked on the square. It was odd that the Rangers would be hanging around in town. They usually arrived to investigate after a crime had been committed. Clyde suspected someone in his new gang might be an informer, but he had no proof and decided to go ahead with plans for the Eastham raid.
Besides its recurring need for better weapons, the Lake Dallas Gang was also having second thoughts about whether it had enough members to successfully carry out the Eastham attack. Clyde and Ralph knew two brothers in Amarillo who might agree to join them, so they drove 365 miles northwest to the Texas Panhandle to track them down. Red had asked to come along. He brandished his .44 revolver and bragged that he’d “part the hair” of any cop that got in their way. They arrived in Amarillo on April 13, but the brothers, never identified in any existing Barrow Gang lore, were nowhere to be found. Clyde, Ralph, and Red turned back toward Dallas, but their car broke down in the small town of Electra about 200 miles east of Amarillo. Normally, that wouldn’t have presented a problem. Clyde could have easily hot-wired another car. But an Electra city employee named A. F. McCormick found it suspicious that a trio of strangers had apparently parked in front of a warehouse, and he called Electra sheriff James T. Taylor to investigate. Taylor hurried over with J. C. Harris, another city employee. They arrived in Harris’s vehicle just as Clyde, Ralph, and Red left their stalled car and began walking into town, undoubtedly planning to steal another automobile.
Taylor leaned out and asked the trio if they had a problem. Ralph explained their car had died, adding they were from Wichita Falls. Small-town Texas sheriffs often made the assumption that young male drifters were up to no good. Taylor said he would have to take them into custody and check out their story. Instead of surrendering, Clyde pulled a .45 and told the sheriff and Harris to put up their hands. As they did, McCormick drove up in a Chevrolet. Ralph, who had just relieved Taylor of his revolver, pointed the gun at McCormick and made him a captive, too. Then Clyde and Ralph jammed into McCormick’s car with the 3 prisoners. There was no need to make room for Red—he’d run away as soon as the confrontation commenced. Clyde later decided that Red was the traitor who had tipped the Texas Rangers to the aborted April 11 bank robberies in Denton. Nothing was going right. Clyde and Ralph still didn’t have high-caliber guns to blast their way past the Eastham guards, and they had lost Red instead of returning from Amarillo with 2 additional members for the Lake Dallas Gang. But Clyde and Fults remained determined to go ahead with the Eastham raid. The rest of the gang was agreeable. Jack Hammett offered to hit a hardware store in the nearby town of Celina and filch a new arsenal. Clyde and Ralph said they’d travel east to Tyler and steal 2 cars large enough to haul escaped prisoners away from Eastham and fast enough to outrun any lawmen in pursuit. They’d meet back by Lake Dallas afterward and make their final plans for the attack. Clyde also wanted to get a message about the impending raid to Aubrey Scalley, and had Bonnie successfully deliver it for him.
The plan went very wrong. Before leaving for Tyler, Bonnie lied to her mother and told her she was finally moving to Houston to take the made-up job selling cosmetics there. Instead, she joined Clyde and Ralph. In Tyler, Clyde picked out and hot-wired a Chrysler. Ralph stole a Buick. Both cars were big enough to transport several Eastham escapees as well as Lake Dallas Gang members, and they were fast, too. On the gravel road between Tyler and Kaufman, Clyde and Ralph raced their new rides at speeds approaching 90 miles per hour. They were impressed with the massive vehicles. Everything went downhill when Ralph asked to make a stop in the small town of Kaufman. There was a hardware store there, and he wanted to rob some ammunition. The other Lake Dallas Gang boys were supposed to be stealing a new batch of weapons in Celina, but what would it hurt to swing through Kaufman and swipe some stuff there, too? It made sense to Clyde, and Bonnie was agreeable. It would just add to the evening’s adventure. Only it didn't go as planned. Authorities arrested Ralph and Bonnie after they were caught hiding at a creek. Clyde was the only one who escaped.
When he rejoined his Lake Dallas Gang in Denton, Clyde learned Hammett hadn’t followed through, and Ted Rogers and Johnny Russell had no idea where he and Ralph Allsup were. Clyde couldn’t wait until Hammett and Allsup reappeared. That night, Clyde, Rogers, and Russell hit the hardware store in Celina that Hammett had been supposed to rob. They got away with some rifles and shotguns. The next afternoon, Clyde, Russell, and Rogers found another spot on the banks of Lake Dallas to test-fire their new guns. Clyde wanted to be certain there would be no misfires when they tried to free Bonnie and Ralph from jail. Unlike the flawed weapons purchased from the pawnbroker in Illinois, these guns worked well—too well. A farmer working in a nearby field was alarmed at what sounded like an endless barrage of shots. He called Denton County sheriff G. C. Cockrell, who loaded several deputies into a car and hurried out to investigate. Clyde’s senses were always keen. He heard rustlings in the brush and correctly assumed “the laws” were approaching. Though they had to abandon the Celina arsenal, Clyde, Russell, and Rogers were able to sneak away on foot before Cockrell and his men could catch them. But even as those 3 members of the Lake Dallas Gang escaped, the missing duo of Jack Hammett and Ralph Allsup drove up looking for their partners. Cockrell arrested them both, and also took possession of the Ford V-8 Clyde had stolen and driven back to Denton during his Kaufman escape 2 days earlier. Over the next few days, everything the Lake Dallas Gang had planned fell apart. The gang disbanded after killing a store owner during a robbery. Their take amounted to about $40 in cash, plus jewelry worth perhaps $1,500. The incident marked the end of what remained of the Lake Dallas Gang.
The Barrow gang struggle to get away while riding on mules. Bonnie and Ralph get sent to jail:
At midnight the gang cruised quietly into Kaufman, with headlights extinguished. Clyde, Bonnie, and Ralph coasted to a stop behind the hardware store they had visited earlier in the evening. The sudden appearance of two sleek cars on the deserted square aroused the curiosity of night watchman Tom Jones. He crossed the square. Ralph was preoccupied with the padlock on the rear door of the shop, but Clyde was continually scanning the darkness for movement. From the corner of his eye he saw something flicker. The watchman rounded the corner, chrome revolver drawn. Clyde whirled and fired. Tom dove behind the Chrysler and returned the fire. Bonnie, still inside the car, crouched nervously on the floor board. Lead screaming past his ears, Clyde ran toward Tom, hoping to pin him down, but he lost the watchman in the shadows. Seconds later, the evening quiet was again shattered by the clanging of a fire bell.
"We'd better get going," shouted Ralph. "That watchman's going to have the whole town out here in a minute." Indeed, a few people had already gathered on the square. The two cars containing Ralph, Clyde and Bonnie, roared past them, turning north on a highway toward Dallas. As soon as he had rounded the curve, Ralph saw Clyde's brake lights blink on. The reason became immediately clear. Two heavy road graders had been pulled across the highway. Several armed men stood nearby. Clyde spun the Buick around in the middle of the road, slinging gravel through the air. Ralph followed suit, reentering Kaufman at high speed. The small group of sleepy town folk, still assembled on the square, watched mutely as the cars careened through their town for a second time. The maneuver proved futile. Several hundred yards southeast of town another road block was visible. Once again the fugitives reversed their direction and backtracked to Kaufman. The people on the square must have thought they were dreaming. They stared in disbelief as the bandits looked for an escape route. Still in the lead, Bonnie and Clyde turned east on a thoroughfare called County Road, with Ralph close behind. Not a soul stood in the way of their flight. It looked as if they were home free. Then it started raining.
Kaufman County soil is laced with a heavy clay, dense and black. In dry weather a shovel will snap before penetrating the surface. After a good rain, however, the ground is transformed into a queasy gumbo that sticks like glue to everything it touches. The road had nearly disappeared in the sudden deluge. Before long, Ralph's Buick was at a virtual standstill, mired in the sludge. Clyde circled back to pick him up. Yards down the road, however, the Chrysler sank to the running boards. The luckless fugitives bailed out of the car and hiked across an open pasture to a small farm house nearby. It was well past 1:00 A.M. when Clyde started pounding on the front door of the darkened house. When the farmer, a man named Rogers, poked his head outside, Ralph grabbed him. "We need your car—fast," he announced threateningly. "Huh? What the—" mumbled Rogers. "Give me the keys to your car, mister," demanded Ralph, jabbing the barrel of his pistol in the man's stomach. A quizzical look came over Rogers's face. "I don't have no car," he said, staring at the gun. "But I've got mules."
Bonnie, Clyde, and Ralph peered through the darkness toward the corral. Two mules were standing in the drizzle, just beyond the gate. "We'll take them," said Clyde. Clyde mounted the first mule. Ralph cupped his hands around Bonnie's tiny waist and lifted her up behind Clyde. She was so light she fairly floated through the air. Ralph then pulled himself astride the second animal. Suddenly he felt himself being heaved high into the air and thrown, head first, into the mud. Ralph pulled himself to his feet and wiped a mask of damp earth from his face. The mule stared at him. "You OK?" shouted Clyde. "Damn," said Ralph, retrieving his pistol from the mire. "To think I used to break wild mules in Gatesville." His second attempt at mounting the beast was accomplished with no trouble. Soon the bareback riders disappeared south through a rain-soaked mesquite grove. A few miles south of Rogers's farm, the fugitives stopped in front of the home of Dr. Scarsdale, the local physician. Trading their mules for the automobile parked in Scarsdale's driveway, the trio made their way back to the highway toward Athens.
Not more than a mile, however, Scarsdale's car ran out of gas. Daybreak was drawing dangerously near. A posse would surely be organized when Scarsdale woke up and discovered a pair of surly mules standing where his car had been parked. "We've got to get off this road," said Ralph, climbing from the car. With Clyde and Bonnie close behind, Ralph forged a path through the thick underbrush of vines and briars. Shortly after sunrise the countryside was filled with armed men literally beating the bushes for the bandits. The posse, comprised mainly of local farmers, were recruited by City Marshall Knute Barnes. Junior Legg arrived early on the morning of April 19. The first thing he saw was Barnes detaining a couple of strangers. "Bend over," he commanded. "Let's see if you've been riding mules." Dutifully, the startled out-of-towners acquiesced. Finding no traces of damp, brown hair on the backsides of the men's trousers, Marshall Barnes released the pair. "I need men to comb the countryside," he shouted. "We got some car thieves hemmed up between here and Mabank. It'll take everyone in town to flush them." Only sixteen at the time and looking for adventure, Junior Legg tagged along. "I was just a farm boy," said Legg. "There wasn't any work because of the rain, so I was looking for something to do. And so was everyone else around Kemp."
Huddled near a grove of mesquite trees, the fugitive youths were growing apprehensive. They lay flat on the rain-soaked ground as 4 or 5 members of the posse passed within 10 feet of their hiding place. Groups of searchers were thrashing the bushes on all sides. By 4:00 P.M., the trio decided to try crossing the main road. A nearby tourist camp, it was thought, might yield an automobile with which to escape. In the distance, on a high bluff overlooking the road, the occupants of a small farmhouse witnessed the episode. Having been forewarned of the presence of outlaws on foot, the family telephoned for help. Within minutes a horde of vehicles and horsemen descended. Ralph dove into the heavily vegetated banks of Cedar Creek, taking a .38 slug in the ankle. Clyde and Bonnie followed. Several shots rang out. Clods of dirt exploded along the edge of the ditch. Clyde stood up and emptied a clip over the heads of his pursuers. Ralph did the same. White as a sheet, Bonnie hugged the ground. A thick cloud of black gunsmoke soon blanketed the ground. Bullets ricocheted overhead, slamming into the bushes and trees nearby. Several members of the posse kept roaming into the line of fire, apparently unaware of the outlaws' position. Ralph and Clyde could have shot any number of them but chose to fire at random over their heads, hoping to scare them off.
A copper jacketed .32-20 slug ripped through Ralph's left arm just above the elbow, pinning him to the embankment. When Bonnie turned to Ralph and saw blood gushing from his limp arm, transforming the ivy and dewberry vines to a sickening maroon, she nearly passed out. Clyde helped Ralph tie a piece of his shirt around the wound, then turned to empty another clip into the woods. "I'm gonna make a run for it," he said. "If I make it, I'll get the others and come back for you both." Clyde jumped to his feet and ran toward a distant line of bushes. A pair of deputies, stationed behind two trees, stood in his path. Inexplorbly, not a shot was exchanged as Clyde sprinted between the lawmen. By chance, both men had been caught in the act of reloading their weapons. They didn't even notice the outlaw disappearing into the scrub brush behind them. Seeing that Clyde was safe, Ralph turned to Bonnie. She looked pale. Her dress had been ripped to shreds, her shoes lost somewhere in the mud. "You'd best give yourself up," he said to her. "You're going to get yourself killed in this damn creek. It's almost dark. I'll try to slip away and rejoin Clyde," he answered. "They ain't got nothing on you. Reload my gun and get the hell out of here, before you get your head blown off." Bonnie nodded, taking Ralph's weapon. The outlaw watched her tiny hands push the thick .45 caliber shells into the clip.
"Tell them I crawled away," he added. "Say you don't know where I went." Bonnie forced the loaded clip into the automatic. "Cock it for me," Ralph said, pointing to the housing above the main chamber. Bonnie knew nothing about guns and had to be coached by Ralph every step of the way. "Tell them we kidnapped you. Tell them anything you like." Bonnie handed the loaded pistol to Ralph, took a deep breath, and pulled herself over the embankment. "I got her!" someone shouted. "I got her!" Ralph strained to hear the ensuing conversation. "Where's the other one?" sounded a gruff voice. "I don't... know," answered Bonnie, faintly. Ralph was so involved in what Bonnie was saying, that he failed to notice what was going on behind him. A shotgun-wielding farmer had crawled up to the edge of the ditch on his hands and knees. "Just hold it right there," commanded the voice from behind. Ralph turned slowly. A pair of black, gaping barrels was all he saw. "Get them hands up," shouted the farmer. Ralph lifted his right hand over his head. "Get that other one up," demanded the gunman, motioning with his weapon. "Ain't no way, mister," Ralph explained. "I can't even move it." Ralph and Bonnie were both sent to jail.
Ralph Fults thought Blanche was exceptionally attractive. In a memoir published sixty-four years later he still remembered and praised her high cheekbones and dark eyes.
Clyde's and Ralph Fult's life after prison and the formation of The Barrow Gang:
Ralph Fults had been released from the Eastham prison farm before Clyde on August 26, 1931. He’d gone home to McKinney to wait for Clyde’s release. The duo planned the dramatic Eastham prison break they’d talked about while swinging axes on the farm woodpile. He knew Cumie Barrow was working hard to secure a parole for Clyde, and with the prison overcrowding, it would be just a matter of time before he, too, was set free. Ralph was more pragmatic than Clyde about post-prison employment. He didn’t look for a job while waiting for his friend to get out. Instead, Ralph supported himself by gambling. It was a lot more fun than slaving away in some sweatshop. Although he himself managed to avoid being arrested, he couldn’t resist aiding in a January breakout from the McKinney jail in 1932. An 18 year old Raymond Hamilton was awaiting arraignment there on several charges of auto theft. Raymond, from West Dallas, told him he was an old friend of Clyde’s. Ralph smuggled hacksaw blades he concealed in the spines of several magazines. Raymond used the blades to cut his way out of his cell on January 27, 1932. He ended up back in West Dallas, grateful to Ralph and hoping to hear from him again.
In early February of 1932, Clyde was released from prison. He started out helping his father with small chores. His real challenge though was learning to walk without crutches after cutting 2 of his toes off with an axe weeks ago in prison. Clyde wanted to build an auto shop adjacent to the family filling station but lacked funds. He was hired, then fired, at several jobs. The Dallas police were well aware he was back, and they didn’t want him around. The old pattern of being regularly picked up for questioning resumed. Clyde swore he intended to go straight. The cops didn’t believe him. Employers didn’t have any patience for an ex-con who was regularly yanked away from work by the law. He never lasted more than a few days in any job. Clyde's sister, Nell, met a man who ran a construction crew in Framingham, Massachusetts. He said he’d hire her brother if he moved there. Clyde was reluctant to go. Bonnie hadn’t remained faithful when he was away in prison but he needed steady income to get start-up money for his auto repair business. Emma Parker claimed she told Clyde it would be fine with her if, once he’d gotten himself established in Framingham, Bonnie would move there, too. If she did tell him that, she didn’t mean it. Bonnie's sister, Billie, swore that her mother was unstinting in her appeals for Bonnie to drop Clyde the minute he left town.
Clyde went to Framingham and hated it. At first, he meant to stick it out until he’d raised enough money to come home and open his shop. Clyde went by the alias Jack Stuwart because he was afraid Dallas police would warn their Massachusetts counterparts. About 2 weeks after he’d left, he was back home. He told an angry Nell that he nearly died from loneliness in Massachusetts. More out of habit than hope, Clyde resumed job hunting in Dallas and Bonnie was thrilled to have him back. Further temptation for Clyde to give up on going straight arrived in the person of his Eastham pal Ralph Fults. Ralph eventually saw a small article in the newspaper listing Clyde Barrow as one of several prisoners recently paroled by the governor. Around the middle of March, he hopped a train to Dallas. This trip came soon after Clyde had returned to Texas from Massachusetts.
After arriving at the main Dallas station, Ralph stole a car and drove out to the Barrow service station. When he introduced himself to Clyde's father, Henry, he was told that Clyde was at work and would be home soon. That surprised Ralph, who hadn’t thought Clyde would attempt to make an honest living. It was a cold day. Henry and Cumie invited their visitor to wait inside, where L.C., Marie, and Buck’s wife, Blanche, were huddled around a wood-burning stove. When Clyde got home, he announced that he’d just been fired again. Enough was enough: Clyde informed his parents and Ralph that he was never going to work again. Previously, car theft and small-business safe crackings had been intended to supplement his honestly earned income. Now he’d devote his full attention to lawbreaking. Their long-discussed prison break at Eastham farm was now in the works. Bonnie told her mother that she’d been offered a wonderful job selling cosmetics in Houston and that sometime, very soon, she’d be moving there. Emma was delighted, less for the employment opportunity than for the fact that her daughter would get away from the malign influence of Clyde Barrow. But Bonnie was lying. Clyde and Ralph had formed a gang with Raymond Hamilton, and at Clyde’s invitation Bonnie planned to leave home and travel with them—thus the creation of The Barrow Gang.
Clyde's loyalty to Barrow gang member Ralph Fults in prison and fearlessness towards prison guards:
Ralph Fults was a convict who befriended Clyde at the Eastham Prison Farm. Guards at Eastham jumped at any opportunity to target Ralph for having escaped the prison. It wasn't long before they targeted Clyde too just for associating with him. One time while they were working the fields together, a group of guards surrounded Ralph and beat him using the barrel of their pistols until his eyes were so swollen, he could hardly see. Clyde didn't hesitate to put himself on the spot, his fists tightening as he glared menacingly at the guards with their weapons aimed directly at him. Clyde didn't walk away, or flinch. He stood his ground and made sure they were the ones who walked off first instead of him. Ralph was especially impressed. In an interview about doing time in prison with Clyde, he recalled that he "sacrificed himself for me".
Another seperate incident involved Clyde at the fields again with Ralph. The guards wanted to target Clyde specifically this time, by purposely speeding up the labor on the cotton fields so that he'd pass out. Thinking he was just a Dallas city boy, they had no clue Clyde was raised on a farm and kept up with the fast pace. One of the guards grew so agitated with Clyde that he charged at him while riding on his horse. Before Ralph could warn his friend, he was already a step ahead. He watched on as Clyde whirled around in the path of the oncoming horse. Side-stepping to the left, Clyde grabbed the reins and turned the horse around. The horse reared slightly, then settled to a dead stop. As the dust cleared, the guard raised the barrel of his shotgun to him. Clyde refused to release the reins and looked straight into the guard's eyes. Ralph was sure Clyde breathed his last breath but for some reason, the guard did nothing. The attempt to run him down was only meant to frighten him. It did not work.
