Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [126]
What little is known of those first weeks after the Eastham raid comes mostly from Joe Palmer, one of the convicts who escaped alongside Hamilton. Recaptured in Paducah, Kentucky, in August 1934, Palmer narrated a patchy version of events before dying in the electric chair. According to Palmer, a thin, jug-eared murderer who suffered from bleeding ulcers and various chronic stomach problems, he and three other prisoners stayed with Bonnie and Clyde after the raid: Raymond Hamilton; a double murderer named Hilton Bybee; and an acne-scarred twenty-one-year-old Louisiana kid named Henry Methvin.
After forming in Dallas, this five-person group drove east to Louisiana to visit Henry Methvin’s parents in a remote section of Bienville Parish, east of Shreveport. In Shreveport they bought clothes and guns. Afterward they headed north, intending to rob a bank in Iowa, which soon became Clyde’s favorite hunting ground. Tensions within the group broke to the surface after they robbed the bank at Rembrandt, in the northwest corner of Iowa, on January 25, eight days after the Eastham raid. It was an uneventful in-and-out affair; the take came to $3,800. According to Palmer, he was too sick to take part, and stayed behind in the getaway car with Bonnie. Still, Clyde insisted Palmer receive an equal share. Hamilton objected, but Clyde won the argument. It wouldn’t be their last: a clear rift was developing between Hamilton and the others. Perhaps sensing the explosive situation, Hilton Bybee left the gang after the Rembrandt robbery; he was arrested five days later in Amarillo.bj
The bickering continued as the gang returned south through Missouri a few days later. They had almost reached Joplin when Palmer and Hamilton began arguing in the backseat. According to Palmer, he called Hamilton a “punk blabbermouth braggart.” Afterward, Hamilton simmered as Palmer threw a blanket over his head and fell asleep on the rear floorboard. According to Palmer, Clyde, who was driving, saw Hamilton take out his pistol, as if to shoot Palmer. Clyde reached back and slapped Hamilton in the face, losing control of the car in the process. They careened into a ditch, damaging the car’s left wheel.bk Palmer thanked Clyde for saving his life but wanted nothing more to do with Hamilton. He prevailed upon Clyde to leave him at Joplin’s Conner Hotel. Clyde promised to return in several weeks.8
If the gang left Missouri, it soon returned, because on February 12 Bonnie and Clyde were involved in a gunfight there. According to the next day’s Springfield Press, it began that morning when a Springfield woman spotted a man stealing her car from a driveway on East Walnut Street. An alert was broadcast, and a little before noon the stolen car was spotted passing through Galena, south of Springfield, then again in Reeds Spring, west of Branson.
Clyde was lost. Outside Reeds Spring, he picked up a hitchhiker, a forty-year-old farmer named Joe Gunn, pointed a pistol at him, and ordered him to guide them to Berryville, across the state line in Arkansas. Gunn climbed into the backseat beside Hamilton and Henry Methvin, who were perched atop a pile of automatic rifles and thousands of bullets. Gunn had been in the car barely five minutes when Clyde spotted a roadblock ahead. It was the Reeds Spring city marshal. Clyde turned onto a dirt road, found it was a dead end, and returned toward the roadblock. “We’ve gotta let ’em have it, boys,” Clyde said, stopping the car.9
Clyde snatched up an automatic rifle, jumped onto the road, and, along with Hamilton and Methvin, opened fire on the roadblock. As they did, another police car appeared behind them. Inside were two Springfield deputies. Hamilton wheeled and fired behind him. Clyde emptied his automatic rifle at the roadblock twice. Each time, Gunn noticed, he handed the rifle to Bonnie to reload. The gang’s firepower