A Dark and Lonely Place (27 page)

When John asked him to open the safe-deposit boxes, Wallace said that only the customers had keys and the boxes contained just legal papers and other documents of no value to anyone else.

“Okay then, I guess that’s it.” As John thanked him and backed out of the vault, Kid Lowe burst in from the lobby.

“What the hell’s taking so long?” Lowe demanded, then asked how much loot they had. When Wallace, the ever helpful teller, said it was about $4,500, Lowe demanded more and threatened to shoot him.

“Take it easy,” John said, siding with the teller, who explained that the bank was small, that it kept little cash on hand, and they had already taken it all. Disgusted, Lowe roughly pushed the teller into the lobby, where Bobby still had the cashier and three customers at gunpoint, their hands in the air.

“Which one of you drives a car?” Lowe shouted. The cashier swore he didn’t own an automobile and couldn’t drive one if he did. The others said the same. Finally customer Frank Coventry, a businessman, admitted his car was outside.

“Good.” Lowe jammed his pistol to the man’s head. “You’re gonna drive us out of town.”

The bank customers and employees were marched outside at gunpoint and forced to face the wall. John warned them not to move. Kid Lowe forced Coventry into the car, then, furious and disappointed by the meager take, decided to prove he meant business. In a show of bravado, he began to fire his guns wildly. Bank victims and passersby either hit the ground or ran for cover. Bullets ricocheted off the building.

“Kid! What the hell you doing?” John shouted. He held the car door open. “Cut that out before you hurt somebody!”

Lowe, still firing, wheeled toward the sound of his voice and shot John Ashley in the face.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

T
he bullet slammed into John’s right jaw on an upward trajectory and lodged in his left eye. Blood flew as he fell to his knees in the dusty street.

Lowe stumbled into the car. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” he screamed at the terrified driver.

“Don’t you move!” Bobby leveled his rifle at the driver, told Lowe to shut up, dragged his barely conscious brother into the back seat, then climbed in with him. Coventry stomped the gas and they speeded away.

“You crazy son of a bitch!” Bobby screamed. “You shot my brother!” Frantically, he used Coventry’s shirt to try to stop the bleeding. “You shot him! You shot John!”

“Didn’t mean to,” Lowe blustered. “It was an accident! He got in the way.”

Bobby cursed at Lowe until he told Coventry to stop on an isolated road outside of town. They carried John from the car and let the abducted bank customer drive away. Once he was out of sight, Bobby and Kid Lowe bundled John, still bleeding profusely, into a Ford they had hidden in the woods.

John clung to consciousness, in severe pain and gravely wounded. His condition made it impossible to return to his Everglades hideout as planned. He needed immediate medical attention. John didn’t know if he’d survive but knew he’d be caught. They hadn’t worn masks, and at least five eyewitnesses could identify him. Barely able to speak, he insisted that Bobby and Kid Lowe leave him and run. “If I die,” he told Bobby, “tell Laura I love her.”

Bobby stopped at the first homestead they saw. He pounded on the door until a frightened woman opened it a crack. “We need help!” he pleaded. “My brother’s been shot in a hunting accident!”

“Bring him in.” She threw the door open and ran to clear her kitchen table. “Lift him up here.”

They did. She turned pale at the sight of his shattered eye and the terrible wound, still gushing blood. His face, already swollen, continued to swell.

Bobby agonized. Lowe apologized, and the farm wife cleaned the wound. She tried to stem the bleeding as best she could, applied bandages, and said she’d pray for them.

“He has to see a doctor as soon as possible,” she said. “You must get him to a surgeon. It’s urgent.”

They said they would, then left John in the woods twelve miles southwest of Stuart. Bobby finally found a telephone, called big brother Bill for help, and fled.

Bill had carefully avoided involvement in John’s troubles but rose to the occasion. The Ashleys never let each other down. Joe and Leugenia had no telephone, but the Potters, neighbors two miles south, had a brand-new four-party line.

When she saw Roy Potter, age thirteen, gallop up on horseback, Laura knew something terrible had happened. She slipped out onto the porch and ran to meet him so that Leugenia would not hear.

“What’s happened?”

The boy shrugged. “Bobby called on the telephone, wants to talk to you. He says it’s important.”

“Is he going to call you back?”

“No, ma’am. He’s still hanging on the line, so nobody else can tie it up.”

He lifted her up onto the horse, and they galloped back to his home.

The boy, his sisters, and their parents all stared. The big black telephone was a new, modern invention, and it was a major event when it rang, even if the call wasn’t for them. Laura picked up the earpiece, turned her back to the family, and tried hard to focus.

“What’s wrong, Bobby? Where are you?”

“John said he loves you, Laura.”

“What’s happened?” Her mouth suddenly felt dry.

“That’s all I can say.”

“Bobby.” Her voice dropped into a register he had never heard before. “You tell me where he is, and what’s happened, right now.” She lowered her voice even more. “Is he hurt?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The blood drained from her face. “Is it bad?”

Bobby hesitated. “Yes, ma’am.” His voice cracked.

“Don’t you dare hang up this telephone. You tell me where he is. Right now, Bobby.”

He told her.

“You left him alone?”

“He said we had to. Said to call Bill. He’s going out there. He’s trying to get a doctor now.”

“Was it Sheriff Baker?” Laura asked quietly, her voice cold.

“No, ma’am. I have to go now.” He hung up.

She turned. The Potters all leaned forward, hanging on every word.

She shook her head, shrugged, and smiled. “A little family matter. You know how these young ’uns are. Do you mind if I make a local call?”

Mrs. Potter signaled the go-ahead and Laura called Bill. The line was busy. Still smiling at the wide-eyed family, she fought tears and repeated the number to the operator for a second time, then a third. She whispered a silent prayer. This time it rang. Lucy answered.

“Can I speak to Bill?” Laura asked.

“Laura? Why would you call here? What do you want with my husband? Don’t you try to drag him into John’s problems. He ain’t having no part in your—”

Bill asked who was calling. When Lucy hesitated, he took the phone from her.

Laura heard his voice and gasped with such relief that she thought her knees would buckle. “Thank God! I’m going with you.”

“That may not be wise, Laura.”

“Bobby told me where he is, Bill. And I will get there if I have to crawl.”

“Where are you?”

She told him.

“All right. Good idea.” He sounded artificially cheerful for Lucy’s benefit. “See you soon, sis.”

Sheriff Baker issued a statewide alert and assembled posses that fell apart. Young, able-bodied men eagerly volunteered but lost their enthusiasm
for the chase when told who it was they were to capture. They suddenly remembered pressing engagements, pregnant wives, sick children, stalled cars, dead batteries, and bad tires. Some said they had no ammunition. Others had mislaid their weapons. Most were loyal to the popular, hardworking Ashley family, and none had the stomach for a gunfight with the best marksman they ever knew, despite word that he was wounded.

Two men, Naha and Tom Tiger, eagerly stepped up. The brothers of DeSoto Tiger, the man Ashley was accused of murdering, led the search, joined by Federal Indian agents, investigators from Florida’s East Coast Railway, and the bank’s company.

Laura could not wait another moment. She walked briskly down the unpaved road to meet Bill’s car. It seemed like forever, but his Ford pulled up within the hour. With him was Dr. Paul Venable, a paunchy, red-bearded, middle-aged doctor from Stuart.

“Bobby said John’s hurt,” Laura said, as she climbed into the back seat and slammed the door. “Is it a gunshot wound?” Bill gave a curt nod and stomped the gas. Laura closed her eyes, prayed hard, and took deep breaths to keep from being sick.

The good doctor had grave misgivings.

“If anyone asks,” Bill assured him again and again, “say I never mentioned the patient’s name or the circumstances. All I told you was that a man was badly injured, and you did your duty as a physician. I promise, I’ll swear to that. She will too.”

“Yes, he’s right. I will.” Laura lifted her eyes to the jagged highway of blue sky between the tall trees bordering the road and wondered fearfully what they would find.

She spotted the turnoff Bobby had described before Bill saw it. He hit the brakes, backed up, and drove in behind the trees. She was running before Bill, with his box of supplies, and the doctor, with his medical bag, were out of the car. Branches caught her hair, scratched her face, and tore her skirt. She stumbled over tree roots and called out his name.

He lay beneath a tree on a makeshift bed of automobile seat cushions. The blood-drenched blanket that had covered him was now crumpled,
tangled, and tossed aside by his thrashing. His blood was everywhere—on the ground, his clothes, his face, and the nearby bushes.

“John!” She dropped to her knees beside him to check for the source of all the bleeding.

“Is that you, Laura?” He reached out, groped for her hand as though in the dark. But it was broad daylight. His left eye protruded at least an inch and a half from the socket, wet and oozing like a broken egg.

“Yes, darlin’, I’m here.” She sounded calm and reassuring, even as dread and denial filled her heart.

“How’d you get here?” he gasped. “Come ’round to the other side so I can see you, darlin’.”

She scrambled around him. Tears of relief overflowed when she saw his right eye focus on her. Bill and the doctor crashed through the undergrowth nearby. “Here, over here!” she cried.

“Bill and the doctor are here. You’ll be all right now, sweet boy,” she whispered. “What happened, darlin’?”

“I’m shot. It was a mistake. We robbed the Stuart bank.”

She gasped.

“Sorry, darlin’.”

“They drove you to it, John. You had to do something.”

She fell back on her heels, tears streaking her face as the doctor took over. He instructed John to cover his wounded eye with his bloody, mud-caked hand.

“What do you see, son?”

“You, Doc. Your specs need a cleaning, and you’ve got brambles all over your jacket.”

The doctor covered John’s right eye. “What do you see now?”

“Nothing, sir. Just the dark, like the swamp at midnight with no moon.”

“Are you in pain?”

John snorted, as if to laugh. “Hell, yeah!”

“I can give you morphine.”

“That’s the ticket, Doc. Thanks. Just make it quick.”

After the injection, Venable stepped away to confer with Bill and Laura.

“He needs surgery.” The doctor dropped his voice. “There’s nothing I can do out here. We have to get him back to town, to a surgeon.”

Bill objected. The doctor argued angrily. “He’s half blind, a bullet’s lodged in his eye. There is no exit wound! You have no choice.”

“Okay.” Bill’s voice was tight. “I’ll pull the car up closer so we can get him into the back seat.”

“No!” John shouted.

They were all startled as he sat straight up. “Laura! Bill! Don’t move! It’s too late! They’re here! We’re surrounded! Don’t you hear them?” He groped for his gun, but Laura had already slipped it into the doctor’s bag. “Don’t shoot, for God’s sake! There’s a woman here!” John shouted.

“He’s delirious.” The doctor frowned.

“No, he isn’t,” Bill said, and raised his hands.

Trees and shadows began to move around them. The stunned doctor stared. “Don’t shoot! We’re unarmed! I’m a doctor treating an injured man! Hold your fire!”

Naha and Tom Tiger and those with them emerged soundlessly from the woods, rifles raised.

Bill and Laura exchanged a despairing look. “How did they find us?” he muttered in disbelief.

“Lucy,” she hissed.

“No! She wouldn’t. Couldn’t . . .” His voice trailed off.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T
he bullet broke John’s jaw and cost him his left eye. Surgeons removed it and planned to take out the bullet as well, but that meant more surgery and he refused.

“I’m gonna hang,” he said bitterly. “Why bother?”

Taken to Miami in chains and under heavy guard, he again faced trial on murder charges. Having Dade County sheriff Dan Hardie see him that way added to John’s pain and humiliation. He and Hardie had once shared a moment, a promise. The lawman had admired his skill, offered his friendship, had shaken his hand, and asked for his help when needed. John, once so proud to be of service, was now the man’s prisoner.

“Don’t apologize,” Hardie said, as John was booked into the jail. “I never dreamed I’d see this day. I’m sure you didn’t either. But remember, all men are innocent until proven guilty. Good luck in court.”

John dreaded the shameful walk from the jail to the courthouse, wearing ankle, wrist, and belly chains, and a black patch over his empty eye socket, stared at by decent people he’d hoped would be his good friends and neighbors in what he thought would be the city of his future. Each step seared his soul.

Hardie guarded his high-risk prisoner well but treated him fairly. Unlike Baker, the Palm Beach sheriff, Hardie did not limit visitors to lawyers, spouses, and blood kin. Laura and other family members, especially his sisters, saw him regularly, in brief, monitored visits with no touching permitted.

Bill, Laura, and Dr. Venable, arrested with him, were released after witnesses confirmed that they had played no role in the bank robbery. Sheriff Baker had his long-sought prize, John Ashley.

How the posse found them so quickly remained a mystery. The sheriff
said a tip from a confidential informant was so precise that the Tiger brothers were able to lead the posse directly to them.