THE MIDNIGHT RIDE OF BONNIE AND CLYDE

By Terry Hodges

Warden Art Lawrence, California Department of Fish and Game, sat glowering in his parked patrol truck, the darkness of the night exactly matching his mood. He would miss the action. He glared at the dimmed digital display of his radio, the only light in the otherwise blacked-out interior of the vehicle, intent on the excited voices of wardens elsewhere.

The pilot of a Fish and Game airplane, just after midnight, had spotted a deer poacher working a high-powered spotlight in mountainous eastern Tehama County. The pilot had vectored wardens to the area, but the poachers, upon seeing approaching headlights, had made a run for it.

"He's raisin' a lot of dust . . . I can't see the road," came the adrenaline-hyped voice of one warden, his siren clearly audible in the background.

"Then back off," said another. "It ain't worth gettin' killed over."

Lawrence cursed his luck. The chase was occurring a mere four miles to the south, just across the county line, but it was a good two hours away by mountain roads—much too far. He could only sit and listen in frustration.

Every bit as frustrated as Art Lawrence was Warden Don Jacobs, who sat in his own idle patrol truck on another mountain road not far from Lawrence. Like Lawrence, Jacob's attention was locked onto his radio. As the chase continued, it now appeared that a second warden unit was about to intercept the fleeing poachers from another direction, the whole operation being directed from the aircraft, a couple thousand feet overhead.

"You should see his headlights any second," said the pilot, peering down as the vehicles rapidly converged.

"OK, I've got him," said the second warden, braking to make a head-on stop.

There followed about two minutes of silence over the radio, a silence that wore heavily on Lawrence and Jacobs. Finally one of the arresting wardens spoke up.

"We're code four," he reported. "We've got two suspects, a spotlight, and a rifle!"

"Ten-four. Good work," said the pilot. "I guess that's it for us tonight. We're gettin' low on fuel."

Lawrence radioed Jacobs on another frequency. "I guess that's it for us too," he said. He then suggested that he and Jacobs make a cooperative patrol back to Burney. They had a good 45 minute drive ahead of them, and there was always the remote chance of encountering a spotlighter on their way home.

"If you stay about five minutes behind me, we may get lucky," said Lawrence. "If I run into anybody, I'll give 'em my brights and blow on by 'em. Then you can set up on 'em."

Jacobs agreed. Soon they met at an intersection, then Lawrence set out, followed five minutes later by Jacobs. They were both dead tired, simply going through the motions, each convinced that all chance for excitement on this night had passed them by.

They were wrong.

* * *

There was nothing pretty about Clyde Harmon McPhee. Nor was there any beauty to be found in the person of his mother, Bonnie Nadine, a five-foot-ten, two-hundred-fifty pound brute of a woman. And yet each of them spent considerable time before a full-length mirror at Bonnie's little cabin near Shingle Town—Bonnie, searching for subtle signs of spontaneous weight loss and Clyde, practicing looking tough and admiring the tattooed art work on his bare arms and chest. And often, of late, Clyde used the mirror for another purpose.

"I wish you wouldn't do that in the house," said Bonnie one night, as she noticed her son again poised before the mirror. She knew well what was coming. Clyde stood, feet apart, arms dangling at his sides, his eyes fixed on his image in the mirror. Suddenly he swept his right hand back, jammed it into the hip pocket of his Levis and jerked it out bearing a snub-nosed, .38 caliber "Chief's Special" revolver. He then slipped the weapon back into his pocket, collected himself and went through the maneuver again. Then again and again.

"They're gonna catch you with that thing and send you back to prison," said Bonnie in the same loud, irritating screech of a voice that had driven Clyde's father away a quarter century earlier.

"I ain't never goin' back to prison, Mom. Never!"

Anyone seeing them together would have noticed a facial resemblance, but there was an odd disparity in their physical sizes. For Bonnie Nadine dwarfed her 25-year-old son in virtually all dimensions. But Clyde wasn't exactly small. True enough, three years in a Mexican prison had whittled him down considerably, but a year in the weight rooms in San Quentin had done much to bring him back. He now stood a wiry-strong, evil-looking five-foot-eight, his jet-black hair and beard contrasting strangely with the jailhouse pallor of his skin. Often seen together in their mountain community, mother and son made a odd-looking couple. The few locals who knew them enjoyed referring to them as Bonnie and Clyde.

Bonnie's concern that her son might be returned to prison was well founded. But his possession of the gun would make little difference, for he was already a fugitive, having jumped parole six months earlier with most of an 18-year sentence hanging over his head. The truth of the matter was that any brush with the law now, for anything, would certainly result in his being sent back to prison for a long time. Well aware of this, he had gone to the hills and moved in with his mother, subsisting on her welfare checks and food stamps, and whatever game he could bring down with an old .22 rifle.

With so much at stake, Clyde McPhee had become a careful poacher, his mother a reluctant and highly nervous accomplice. He would not risk killing deer near their cabin for fear of being turned in by nearby neighbors, nor would he risk using a spotlight at night. He limited his kills to those he could make using only the headlights of his mother's aging sedan. And even then he took precautions. He insisted that he and his mother dress up to go poaching, so that they would not look like poachers. "We wanna look like we're just out for a drive," he would say. And he made plans with his mother, conspiring to defeat any situation that might arise that could put him under close scrutiny of the law. These plans, in fact, included the killing of cops if necessary.

And so it was that later that night Clyde McPhee, dressed neatly in slacks and a clean sweater, his hair slicked back, and Bonnie Nadine, in full makeup, jewelry, a dressy blouse, and her best pair of Spandex tights, set out in the old sedan in search of game. But deer, on this night, proved hard to find. Mother and son proweled the mountain roads of southeastern Shasta County for hours, with Bonnie at the wheel, seeing occasional eyes in the headlights, but nothing that would hold long enough for a shot. It wasn't until after midnight, near Hatchet Peak, that their luck changed.

"Stop, Mom," said Clyde. "Back up and shine your lights on that meadow."

Bonnie did as directed, backing the big sedan around until it sat crosswise in the road, its bright beams illuminating an opening in the forest. And there, transfixed in the lights, stood a doe and two half-grown fawns. Clyde grabbed the rifle from under the front seat and leaned far out the window with it. Squinting down the barrel, he trained the sights on a point midway between the bright, reflecting eyes of the doe. His index finger tightened on the trigger.

"Hold it, Clyde," said his mother urgently, and Clyde looked up in time to see a vehicle wheeling around the bend toward them. He had just enough time to haul himself and the rifle back inside before they were bathed in the bright headlights. And at that instant, as the approaching vehicle braked to a stop, a bright red light appeared near its driver's door. Clyde did his best to stuff the rifle back under the seat and compose himself as a large figure bearing a flashlight approached.

"Remember the plan, Mom," whispered Clyde McPhee. "Remember the plan."

* * *

Warden Art Lawrence had been battling fatigue, fighting to keep his eyes open on the long drive home. But upon rounding a curve and finding a big sedan totally blocking the road, its headlights trained on deer in a meadow, all weariness vanished. As he braked to a stop facing the driver's side of the sedan, he had time only to hit the switch to his red light and reach for his radio microphone.

"I've got a spotlighter," was all that he said, then he grabbed his flashlight and stepped out into the night.

Warden Don Jacobs, still five minutes behind was confused over Lawrence's call, not knowing whether to set up an ambush or come rushing on in. He called Lawrence for more information, but got no reply. He tried again. No answer. He then jammed the accelerator to the floor, sending gravel flying, as he sped away in Lawrence's direction.

Lawrence in the meantime was carefully approaching a man and a woman in the sedan, nervous to be walking through his own headlights. He held his flashlight high, in his left hand, his gun hand resting on the holstered butt of his big magnum revolver. He had seen plenty to justify detaining these people and searching the vehicle for guns. For he had seen the man in the passenger seat hunch forward and down in the classic "furtive movement" of stuffing something under the seat. And the behavior of the two suspects, after this furtive movement, had been plenty suspicious in itself. Upon finding themselves fixed in the headlights and red light of an arriving patrol vehicle, they had not looked at it, but had stared straight ahead through their windshield, like robots—certainly abnormal behavior.

"State Game Warden!" shouted Lawrence as he moved to approach, from slightly behind, the large woman at the wheel. "Ma'am, would you turn off the engine please?" Bonnie Nadine complied. "Now, would you folks put your hands up on the dashboard where I can see 'em, please?" They complied, and Lawrence directed his flashlight beam inside for a quick look around. Nobody in the back seat, no weapons in view. But he was puzzled over the way the two suspects were dressed. They looked as though they had just come from church.

"What's the trouble, officer? We're just out for a drive," said Bonnie, in her best innocent-lady voice.

"Well, I'm wondering why you're stopped like this in the middle of the road," said Lawrence.

"We were just turning around to go home," she said.

Good answer, Lawrence thought. But he was still certain that they had been up to no good.

"Do you have any guns in the car?" Lawrence asked, now directing the flashlight beam at the male suspect.

"No guns," said Clyde McPhee. "We're not lookin' to shoot anything."

"OK, sir," said Lawrence. "Would you mind steppin' out, please, keeping your hands where I can see 'em?"

McPhee complied, and as he opened the door and moved his legs to exit the sedan, Lawrence spotted a rifle stock protruding slightly from under the seat.

"Now come around to this side, please," said Lawrence, watching the man's every move. Again the man complied, but there was something about him that made Lawrence real uneasy. And there was something about Lawrence that made Clyde McPhee real nervous, for Lawrence, at six-foot-four and 255 pounds, was one of the largest officers he had ever seen.

With the male suspect out in full view, Lawrence now asked the woman to come out, and while she was struggling from behind the wheel, Lawrence noted that she appeared considerably older than the man. "Are you two related?" he asked.

"I'm his mother," said Bonnie Nadine.

With both suspects now out of the sedan, Lawrence instructed them to remain where they were, and he slipped around the rear of their vehicle and approached the passenger door. Without taking his eyes off the suspects, he opened the door, reached under the front seat and withdrew the rifle. Standing again, he slipped back the bolt of the rifle and ejected a shiny .22 hollow point cartridge into his hand. Rifle and cartridge he now carried to his patrol vehicle. As he did so, the male suspect started walking toward him, and experience and instinct were now shouting urgent warnings in the warden's brain.

"Hold it, sir! Stand back where you were," said Lawrence, at a half-crouch now, his left hand raised and signaling STOP, his right hand on his gun butt. The man hesitated a moment, then moved back to stand sullenly with his mother.

Lawrence now anxiously glanced up the road and was relieved to see Don Jacobs' headlights appear. Jacobs, traveling fast, braked hard and slid in next to Lawrence's pickup. Two sets of headlights now illuminated the suspects. Jacobs stepped out, and the two wardens held a quick conference in low voices.

"I really don't like the looks of that guy," said Lawrence. "Keep a good eye on him" He then filled Jacobs in on the stop, the loaded rifle and what little he knew about the suspects so far.

"A mother and son poaching team?" said Jacobs. "That's a new one!"

Lawrence asked Jacobs to cover him and watch the woman while he searched the man. They separated as they approached the suspects.

"Sir," said Lawrence, "Step over here, please. I have to give you a quick pat-down search for weapons." McPhee exchanged a quick look with his mother, then approached Lawrence near the front of the sedan. But at this point all cooperation on the part of McPhee ceased. When Lawrence instructed him to turn around and face away, McPhee turned a full circle to again face the warden. Lawrence again asked the man to turn around, and once more McPhee did a full circle. And so it went, with McPhee deliberately, but passively, resisting the warden's demands.

Lawrence had intended to be as soft as possible in dealing with the man, not wanting to manhandle the guy in front of his mother. And like many large wardens, Lawrence was concerned with being perceived by others as a "heavy." But it was now apparent that the soft approach was not going to work. So, in a new voice, low and heavy with menace, Lawrence ordered the man to turn around and lace his fingers behind his head. McPhee now instinctively complied. Lawrence then approached from behind and grabbed the man's hands, locking them together.

It was obvious to Lawrence that the man had been testing him, taking measure of him, and he fully expected the man to try something. For this he was ready. But for what happened next, he was totally unprepared.

Suddenly the woman began screaming and ripping at the buttons on her blouse. "He doesn't have a gun. Here, search me! Search me!" In seconds, she had stripped off her blouse and had begun peeling off the Spandex pants.

"Hey, stop that!" shouted Jacobs, horrified, "Stop that, ma'am!" But soon the Spandex pants were down at her ankles.

"Search me! Search me!" she shrieked, kicking off the pants and ripping at her underwear.

"Stop that, ma'am! Stop that!" yelled Jacobs.

It was at this point that Clyde McPhee made his move. Lawrence's attention had been successfully diverted, and McPhee suddenly spun away, breaking the warden's grasp. But Lawrence caught McPhee's sweater from behind, and the garment, stretching like a giant bungee, brought the man to a halt. McPhee then whirled to face the warden, digging with his right hand for the pistol in his hip pocket. But Lawrence was on him like an avalanche, driving him to the ground, crushing the wind out of him.

"I think he's got a gun!" shouted Jacobs, who in a glance had seen McPhee going for his pocket, an act screened from Lawrence's view. Jacobs was now in action, crouched defensively, struggling to prevent an eighth-of-a-ton of shrieking, near-naked woman from rushing to the aid of her son.

But Clyde McPhee, face down in the dirt, was in no condition to use his gun.

"You screwed up, didn't you, partner!" growled Lawrence into the man's ear.

"Yeah . . . I . . . screwed up," gasped McPhee. Lawrence plucked the pistol from the man's pocket and slipped it into his own. He then wrenched the man's arms behind his back, drew his handcuffs and snapped them onto the tattooed wrists.

* * *

"You're kidding me," said the jailer. "She ripped her clothes off?"

"That's right," said Lawrence. "Right there in the middle of the road. It was not a pretty sight!"

The jailer roared with laughter. "Did you bring her in too?"

"No," said Lawrence. "We left her there, rolling around in the dirt, screaming at the top of her lungs. But her clothes were there, and her car keys . . . she could get home."

"Well, Clyde Harmon McPhee is a good catch," said the jailer. "He was a heavy-duty drug smuggler, before the Mexicans caught him. He did some real hard time in a Mexican prison before his mother got him exchanged. Then he did some time here before he was paroled. This'll send him back for a long time."

Lawrence now joined Jacobs at the booking window, where another jailer was questioning McPhee—a jailer with a sense of humor.

"Are you on any medication?"

"No."

"Do you have any communicable diseases?"

"No."

"Have you ever done time in a Turkish prison?"

"No."

"Did you cry when Ol' Yeller died?"

"No."

"You didn't cry when Ol' Yeller died? You must really be tough. Even I cried when Ol' Yeller died."

And so it went.

It was dawn before the wardens finished their business at the Shasta County Jail, and by then the adrenaline they had been running on had worn off. They were left tired and hungry, feeling totally drained. Even the humor of the incident was wearing thin. In its place, a much darker emotion was creeping in, a sinister, ugly thing that lodged in the pits of their stomachs. For the reality of their experience was now upon them. McPhee, in his desperation, had hoped to kill them, and the plan he had devised with his mother had nearly worked. It was by only the narrowest of margins that the wardens had been spared a close, nasty exchange of gunfire that would have likely left somebody dead. It had indeed been a near thing.

To Art Lawrence, who never knew fear, a close call with a gun-wielding criminal was of little concern. To deal with it, it was his style to simply buy more life insurance. But for Don Jacobs, this harsh reminder of the tenuous nature of his existence would have a more lasting effect. And as he drove home that morning, with the sun rising over the Sierra Nevada, he took some quiet time to marvel over things he had long been taking for granted . . . like the wondrous pleasure of simply being alive.