A Dark and Lonely Place (26 page)

Stunned, Baker scrambled in pursuit. The fleeing prisoner was out of sight, but he heard running footsteps in the dark, drew his revolver, and emptied it in that direction.

Then he ran headlong to a nearby shed, dragged out his bicycle, and pedaled frantically through the torrential rain along the path he believed Ashley had taken.

All he found was Joe Ashley, the prisoner’s father; Laura Upthegrove, his sweetheart; and Bethel Forsythe, a close family friend, chatting and waiting out the rain beneath the overhang of a nearby store. They said they didn’t see anybody running.

“That’s when I knew,” Baker bitterly told the press, “that John Ashley’s escape was a carefully orchestrated plan involving a number of people.”

It had happened so fast that Baker never could explain to news reporters—or his father, the sheriff—how Ashley managed to scale a ten-foot fence during a fierce rain squall. “He just melted through it,” Baker babbled to the press, the whites of his eyes reflecting in the flash-bulbs’ glare. The reporters and others concluded that Baker had failed to follow his own strict procedures and, lulled into a false sense of security, neglected to lock the gate behind them.

“He was well liked, never gave us any trouble, and was a model prisoner—until he escaped,” Baker complained. “We’ll find him,” he swore. “He can’t get far.”

Days later, pressed by reporters, Baker revealed that he had tracked John Ashley to Fresh Water Lake. There, he said, the wanted man broke into a shack, stole food and a shotgun, then vanished into the ’Glades.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

N
early a year after he surrendered to clear his name, John Ashley was hunkered down in his Everglades hideout again. Still wanted for murder, he now faced escape charges as well.

Laura arrived at dusk, days later. After so many months apart, unable to even touch each other, their reunion was bittersweet.

He heard her approach and stepped from the shadows, a gun in each hand. “Sure Baker’s men didn’t follow you?”

“I’m sure,” she whispered. “I remember everything you taught me.”

“Good.” He checked behind her, then holstered one of the weapons and took her into his arms.

Reluctant to light a fire or even a lantern, they sat close together in the dark as night’s blanket fell. But as he fumbled to unfasten her skirt, she didn’t guide his fingers as usual. He sighed aloud. “What?”

“Did you rob the train in Fort Pierce three days ago?”

“Train?” He stopped what he was doing. “Huh, let me think about that. Why, hell no! I haven’t left here since I arrived, except to do a little fishing yesterday before dawn.”

“I knew you didn’t!” She hugged him, then unfolded the newspapers she’d brought. “They say that you did, then shot a tourist for his money and luggage that night just south of the natural bridge.”

“In Miami? What the . . . ? How could a man travel from Fort Pierce to Miami that fast? He’d need wings. Nobody can be in two places at once, at least I can’t.” He kissed her neck. “Wish I could, darlin’, but I ain’t been noplace but here.”

It was too dark to even read the headlines, but Laura filled him in on the stories she’d read again and again. Since his escape John had been named and blamed whenever a gun was fired or a crime committed
anywhere in Florida. Sheriff Baker called news conferences and painted lurid pictures for reporters. John Ashley lurked in the Everglades by day, plotting new crimes, Baker said, then emerged from the swamp after dark to commit them with his outlaw gang.

“Gang?” John said indignantly. “I ain’t seen another soul, I swear, till you came. Where would I find a gang out here?”

A reporter from the Stuart newspaper had asked the same question, Laura said. Baker’s reply? Easy, he said. John had recruited felons he met in jail while awaiting trial.

“That no-good, lying son of a bitch!” John said. “That man would rather climb a tree and tell a lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth.”

“There’s another story,” she said sadly. “I wanted to tell you about it before you saw it yourself.”

“How many more lies can they tell?” he said bitterly.

“I’m afraid this one is true. Mr. Carl Fisher—”

“Nothing’s happened to him, has it?” His voice rang with concern.

“No, John. He’s fine, in fact he’s offered a five-hundred-dollar reward for your capture. Dead or alive.”

She heard the breath leave his body, as though he’d taken a blow to the solar plexus.

“Think it’s true?” he finally said.

“Yes, he was interviewed, had his picture taken, and I saw one of the posters.”

“How could he?” he asked in disbelief. “The man knows me, asked me to work for him. I figured I still would after all this blew over.”

Laura knew he’d never abandon their Miami dream. He still clung to the hope that someday it would come true.

“He said you were a public scourge, that you’re bad for business, you hurt land sales and scare off investors. I brought some things,” she added quickly, “to take with us.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere they’re not hunting for you, John.”

“No!” he said angrily, his voice ragged. “I’ve had nothing to do out here but think. My first mistake was letting Baker run me outta Florida. The second was coming back. Lord, it felt so right at the time, but it
didn’t work out. I’m never gonna let the damn Bakers mess with my life again. Ever.”

“We can make up new names, go to California, or Canada. Maybe a Caribbean island. What about Cuba?” Her words were wistful in the dark.

“Did you hear what I just said?” he asked irritably. “Last time we ran, we changed names so often that half the time I didn’t know who the hell I was, who you were, or what name to answer to. They’re not doing that to me again. I’m John Ashley.” He jabbed his chest with his thumb and rose to his feet. “That’s who I am and always will be. If Baker and his men mess with me again, I’ll be their worst nightmare.”

“I know you’re angry,” she said gently, “and hurt, but that’s nonsense, John. You can’t fight the law and win in the end. There’s too many of them. You might win some battles, but not the war.”

“Watch me,” he muttered ominously.

Bobby also spent time with John at the fishing camp. Both he and Laura delivered news stories to John, reports of his “reign of terror,” his “statewide crime spree,” brutal shootings, and ruthless robberies as his outlaw reputation loomed larger every day.

Finally, John had had enough. One night Bobby arrived at the fishing camp and found John had company, three tough-talking strangers he’d met at a ramshackle saloon at the fringe of the Everglades.

“This is Kid Lowe.” John grinned. “Guess what he does?”

Bobby shrugged and offered his hand to the balding man, who painfully crushed his fingers in an iron grip.

“Banking!” the Kid boomed. “I’m into banking.”

Everyone laughed as though it were funny.

“I’m wanted in Chicago,” Lowe coyly confessed, “for making unauthorized withdrawals—of other people’s money!” He smirked, laughed heartily at his own joke, and swaggered around the room.

With him were Clarence Middleton and Roy Matthews, also wanted men. The trio had fled south to hide out. Strangers to Florida’s wild and unfamiliar turf, they’d seen the news accounts and heard talk about John Ashley’s crime spree. They were thrilled to meet the high-profile fugitive.

“What were those guys doing here?” Bobby frowned, his fingers still numb, after the men departed. He had disliked Lowe, the balding bank robber, on sight.

“Listen,” John said. “After all that time waiting in jail for trials, we’re dead broke. Me, Laura, Mama, and Pop spent everything we had on my defense. I figured we’d win, I’d land a good job in Miami, make that money back and more. But we didn’t win and now I’m a fugitive who can’t land an honest job. Not when the newspapers write that I’m guilty as hell. Just like Baker and Carl Fisher, they don’t even ask for my side. So the way I see it: they gave me the name, so I’ll play the game. What choice do I have? Damned if I do and damned if I don’t. They tell the world I run with outlaws, that I’m Florida’s baddest man. So, what the hell? Why not make it true?”

“But why throw in with those guys?”

“Because they’re pros, real outlaws.” John leaned forward, eyes bright. “They know what they’re doing. I can learn a whole lot from them.”

Bobby looked thoughtful. “Does Laura know?”

“Not yet.” John said.

She soon did, and was less fond than Bobby of John’s new friends.

“All you have in common with them is that you’re fugitives,” she told John. “You’re an innocent man. You were railroaded. They’re bad men wanted for good reasons. You’re not one of them.”

“Nobody’d believe that if they read the newspapers,” John said bitterly. “I can learn from them. I need to learn the ropes.”

She argued against it. “If they were pros, good at what they did, then why are they fugitives? If they were that good, nobody would know their names.”

He listened, but soon after, John and Kid Lowe set out to rob the Palm Beach Limited, a Florida East Coast Railway passenger train.

Unfortunately, Clarence Middleton, the team’s third member, had indulged in opiates for days, a habit he’d brought from Chicago. Unable to sleep, he suffered severe tremors and paranoia and had been firing his pistol at rattlesnakes, rats, and others creatures that only he could see.

Kid Lowe insisted that Clarence participate anyway. “He’ll be all right,” Lowe said. “I’ve seen him a lot worse than this.”

John disagreed, wrestled Clarence’s gun away, and tied him to a chair.

Lowe insisted they needed a third man to act as lookout while they robbed the mail car. Bobby was thrilled when Lowe invited him.

John had serious reservations. But at least, he thought, he knew he could trust Bobby.

They set out with high hopes. The trio boldly boarded the train when it slowed at a crossing. John nodded and smiled politely at a female passenger. But when she saw his gun, she became hysterical, ignored his orders to stop, and ran shrieking through the train. Passengers panicked, and a fast-thinking porter rushed to bolt the doors between cars. The robbers, who’d forgotten their masks, were locked out and isolated. They escaped, red-faced and empty-handed, when the train stopped south of Stuart.

Furious, John blamed the confusion on lack of planning about who was to stand guard while the others looted the mail car. He’d assumed that Kid Lowe, the professional, would take the lead. Kid Lowe had assumed that John Ashley, the master criminal whose press he believed, would be in charge.

John began to realize that Lowe was not exactly the evil genius and master criminal he claimed to be.

“We need a plan!” John raged to Bobby and the Kid. “Nobody succeeds without one. We need to put it together, then stick to it. We’ve got to foresee all the things that can go wrong and plan what to do if they happen.”

Once more, John’s picture appeared on the front page of his hometown newspaper, under the headline “Daring Train Robbery.” This time he’d actually committed the crime attributed to him and further embarrassed his loved ones.

Reporters hounded Sheriff Baker. Furious, he vowed to take immediate action but was frustrated. His deputies could find no trace of Ashley or his gang. Still beset by the press, Baker took action anyway. He had his deputies arrest John’s father, Joe Ashley, a laborer who worked for him, and John’s brother-in-law, Hanford Mobley.

Baker announced the arrests at a press conference, expecting positive publicity. But the men he’d arrested were respected citizens. None had
ever been linked to crime. The press and the public were outraged. Irate editorials splashed across front pages, listing all the responsible jobs, achievements, and titles held by Mobley, a dynamic local businessman.

“His record is clear,” the editor pointed out, “like the others’. Why on earth would Sheriff Baker arrest this fine man?”

Baker quickly released all three. Too late. The fickle press had switched sides. “Every bullet fired anywhere is blamed on John Ashley,” one editor wrote. “He’s only a man. No one should accuse him of DeSoto Tiger’s murder until they can prove it in court,” wrote another.

Humiliated by John Ashley again, the thin-skinned, publicity-conscious, politically ambitious sheriff lost sleep and began to grind his teeth.

John, too, lost sleep. He’d always been dead set against robbing banks, the local institutions where his family, friends, and neighbors deposited their hard-earned cash.

“It’s not right,” he told his new pals from Chicago.

But Kid Lowe could talk up a storm. “Where does the bank’s money come from?” he demanded. “From up north. It’s Yankee money! Ain’t nothing wrong with robbing Yankees.” That made sense to John.

On Tuesday, February 23, 1915, a teller looked up as a young man walked into the Bank of Stuart brandishing a high-powered rifle and shouted, “Hands up!”

The teller grinned, thought it was a joke, then saw the cashier, his hands already in the air. John Ashley suddenly appeared with a pistol in each hand and ordered the cashier to open the metal gate. The cashier complied and warned the teller, “Better put ’em up, Wallace! He means it.”

“You bet!” The startled teller raised his hands, then asked, “What’s next?”

John tossed him a gunnysack. “Put the money in there. That’s next.”

The teller stuffed all the money John could see, about $4,500 in greenbacks and silver, into the sack but never opened the cash drawer. John took the sack then demanded more. The teller used both hands to lift a hefty canvas bag that contained three thousand pennies. “It’s only copper,” he said.

“We’ll take it anyway,” John said. His knees nearly buckled when the teller dropped nineteen pounds of pennies into the sack he held.

John had never been inside a bank before, knew little about how they
operated, and identified with the victims. “I’m sorry about this, Wallace. But we had some bad luck a few weeks ago,” he told the teller, referring to the failed train robbery, “and we really need the money.”

He insisted that the teller open his desk drawers, one by one, in search of more loot, but failed to notice the closed cash drawer that held more than $60,000. Then John marched Wallace into the vault, but the clever young teller convinced him it was empty.