A Dark and Lonely Place (28 page)

John suffered another blow to his morale. The newspapers that had once supported him now embellished the story of his capture and retold in vivid prose the details of his escape and crimes. Traumatized victims and terrified witnesses were quoted at length: the woman who’d run screaming through the train, the clever bank teller, and Frank Coventry, the bank customer forced into the role of getaway driver. All told their harrowing personal stories of survival.

Editorial writers who had once criticized Sheriff Baker’s heavy-handed tactics were now outraged at the hometown bad boy who preyed on neighbors and fellow citizens. One stinging diatribe concluded, “It’s hoped that neither Sheriff Baker nor his deputies take any chances this time, and that John Ashley soon receives his just deserts.”

John, who’d been so eager for his first trial, dreaded the public spectacle this time. Proceedings began on April 2, 1915. The defendant, in his white suit, black bow tie, and matching eye patch, listened intently, along with a packed courtroom, to the prosecution’s first witness, the dredge captain who described finding Tiger’s body with a gunshot wound through his head.

Unlike Palm Beach, the Miami trial took less than four days. On April 6, the jury swiftly returned a guilty verdict. The jurors recommended a sentence the same day and the judge agreed. Death by hanging.

Their fears realized, John’s loved ones were inconsolable. He tried to comfort them. “We all get the death penalty,” he said. “The only difference is that when you’re sentenced to die, you have a date on the calendar instead of wondering when you wake up every morning if today’s the day a bullet finds you.”

His last hope was dashed ten days later when he was denied a new trial. He still insisted he was innocent and had acted in self-defense, but his grasp on life seemed tenuous at best. Public opinion turned against him and his family after the newspaper attacks. Even if his lawyers, who now worked without pay, won their appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, he would still face trial for robbery. And he suffered excruciating headaches caused by the bullet still lodged in his head. He languished in jail. His loss of weight and hope plunged those who loved him into despair.

Laura and his sisters, especially Daisy, the green-eyed family beauty, endured crude jokes, rude stares, and bold whistles from jailers each time they visited the condemned man. Yet they continued to deliver home-cooked meals all the way from Palm Beach, along with a tonic prescribed by Dr. Anna Darrow, of Okeechobee. Joe had traveled to central Florida to consult her. He hoped her tonic would stimulate John’s appetite and help him heal. One afternoon, Daisy and Laura were so shaken by the jailers’ cruel remarks and gestures that they inadvertently left their wicker food basket behind. They quickly returned for it and gasped. What they saw in the jail yard shocked them.

“Hey, you!” Daisy shouted. “What are you doing?”

“Stop! Please don’t!” Laura cried, as Chief Jailer Wilbur Hendrickson poured out the bottle of tonic they’d brought and tossed it, along with John’s meal, into a garbage bin.

Hendrickson ignored them.

“We saw what you did!” Laura said. “We’ll see what the sheriff has to say about this!”

“What the hell you gals jawing about?” the cocky jailer replied. “What you want anyhow with that half-blind, thieving swamp rat?” He laughed and touched his crotch. “Want to try a real man on for a change?”

Daisy and Laura quarreled about what to do. Daisy feared that reporting the jailer’s actions could make life behind bars more difficult for John. Laura insisted that Dan Hardie was fair and would not tolerate Hendrickson’s behavior. But as Daisy pointed out, Hardie could not be at the jail twenty-four hours a day and John would surely suffer consequences. Laura reluctantly agreed. They said nothing to Hardie, but the family spiraled into a tailspin. Their favorite son, the man Laura loved, was doomed to die at age twenty-seven. If he didn’t hang, he’d surely die of neglect and mistreatment behind bars.

Leugenia and her daughters wept and prayed. Laura, strong and dry-eyed by day, sobbed at night. Bobby, whose room was close to hers, heard her.

The youngest Ashley brooded. His father and brothers cursed Hendrickson, talked tough about a possible rescue attempt, but eventually concluded that the odds were stacked against a successful jailbreak.
Bobby began to secretly sneak whiskey to numb the pain of seeing his family suffer.

But that all changed on Thursday, June 1, 1915, a spectacular spring day. Bobby appeared cheerful at breakfast, was brimming with energy, and seemed to have regained his recently lost air of youthful expectation. Laura tousled his hair and told him how much he resembled John when he was younger.

Bobby smiled. It’s as though she knows, he thought.

“Laura?” he asked, as she cleared the table. “What happened to that big blue sheet of wrapping paper?” A package of dry goods—muslin and cambric—ordered from the Sears, Roebuck catalog, had arrived days earlier wrapped in thick blue paper.

“It’s folded in the pantry,” she said.

“Can I have it?”

“Sure. Take it.” She would regret later that she never thought to ask why he wanted it.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Love you, Bobby,” she said.

“It’s Bob, ma’am.” He flashed a conspiratorial grin.

Laura watched him go, bemused. Would he want to be called Robert after his next birthday? He’d always be Bobby to her. He so reminded her of John the year they swam with manatees in the Caloosahatchee River and lay naked on the bank. Sweet memories comforted her as she scraped and washed the plates. When her thoughts returned to the present, she wondered about young “Bob.” What’s he up to lately? They’d all been so worried about John that Bobby had been ignored, left on his own more than ever. She dried her hands on a dish towel and wondered, did he and that little Lummus girl spend time alone in some secret place? They definitely had eyes for each other.

Bobby’s too shy, she thought, but she wished John was there to talk to him. John. Her eyes filled. What if he did hang? God forbid. How unfair, how insane! What would I do? She wondered. Where could I go? How could I live in a world without him?

She went to look for Bobby, but he was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

B
obby pedaled to the railroad yard. When no one was watching, he dragged his bicycle and a long package wrapped in blue paper into an empty boxcar on a southbound freight.

No one noticed until suppertime. Leugenia fixed Bobby a plate and listened for his quick steps on the porch; she became alarmed after dark. “This isn’t like Bobby,” she said.

“He’s been gone since breakfast,” Laura told her. “Did he go fishing?” But his fishing pole still hung in place in the barn.

Joe looked for him, had no luck, and came home scowling.

Bill and Lucy had come for supper. “That boy just craves attention,” Lucy said. “When he finally straggles home, somebody should kick his butt!” She gave them a sugary smile. “You all have more than enough to worry about these days with all John’s problems. How dare that spoiled young ’un show his ass like this.”

“Bobby’s never been a problem.” Leugenia wrung her hands. “There are bears, rattlers, cougars, and Indians out there. What if he’s been hurt? Or went swimming and drowned?”

“Bobby’s smart,” Laura assured her. “He’s an excellent swimmer. He probably just lost track of time.”

Bill promised to watch for him on the road, as he and Lucy left.

An hour later, Joe and Frank took their best tracking hound out to pick up his trail, while Ed rode to a married sister’s house to see if Bobby might be there with his nieces and nephews.

The dark woods and dirt roads echoed with their calls. “Bobby! Bobby Ashley! Bobbeee!” No one answered. The hound treed a wildcat. His nephews swore they hadn’t seen Bobby in days.

“Should we send for the sheriff?” Leugenia asked, at 3 a.m.

The men nixed the idea for the time being. None trusted the law after all that had happened. If deputies found him, he might be arrested for his role in the train and bank robberies. “Let’s wait till morning. Maybe we can find him first,” Frank said.

“Yeah, if he’s not home by dawn,” Ed agreed.

Laura suggested they ask the Lummus girl when she last saw Bobby.

“Who?” Joe frowned. He had no idea who she meant.

“That little blond-headed girl he always looks at in church,” Laura said.

“With her sneaking looks back,” Leugenia added.

“That’s the one,” Laura said. “What is her first name?”

“Rachel, I think,” Leugenia said.

“Ben Lummus’s girl?” Joe looked perplexed. “Thought all he had was little ones.”

“Time flies,” Leugenia said. “She’s the oldest girl of five.”

“Kids grow up too fast these days,” Joe said wistfully.

At 4 a.m. they left a light in the front window and tried to catch a little sleep before dawn.

Bobby arrived in Miami at 4 a.m. He too waited for dawn. He counted the hours in the darkened railway depot, a block north of the jail. He and John had often visited Miami and he knew his way around. They’d worked there once for several days, had shingled a roof in Coconut Grove. The city had been exciting, a welcome adventure then. On this, his first solo trip, Miami was a strange and hostile place.

He thought of home. Do they miss me yet? he wondered. He hoped they wouldn’t worry. It’s time they treat me like a man, he thought. After today, they will.

Back in Palm Beach, Joe and Laura rode over to the Lummus place just after dawn. Ben, a hefty, middle-aged farmer, was outside at the pump, shirtless and washing his face.

“My youngest boy, Bobby, didn’t come home last night,” Joe said.

“I’ll join if you’re putting together a search party.” Ben blinked in the bright sunlight as he dried his face with a cloth.

“Not yet,” Laura said. “We hoped your girl, Rachel, might know where to find him.”

“Rachel?” Ben’s eyes narrowed. “How would she know?”

“They’re friends, in school and church. I think he’s sweet on her,” Laura said. “Bobby’s always dependable. We’re so worried.”

“Rachel!”
her father bellowed, startling them both.

The slightly built teenager, with straight, almost white blond hair hanging down her back, padded barefoot onto the porch. She wore a loose yellow cotton dress with white trim. Her big gray eyes grew wider and she shyly hugged her arms when she saw visitors.

“You seen the Ashley boy?” her father asked.

She shook her head slightly, then lifted her eyes to watch a buzzard circling in the sky.

Laura feared it was an omen. “Rachel, dear, Bobby’s been missing overnight and we’re afraid something’s happened to him. Can you help us?”

Rachel sneaked a glance at her, then looked away quickly, but not before Laura saw something in her eyes. Fear? Guilty knowledge?

“Mind your manners, Rachel,” her father demanded. “Answer the lady.”

“No, ma’am,” Rachel said. “I’m sure he’s fine. But I don’t know where he’s at.” Her slender shoulders lifted in a halfhearted shrug.

“What did he say when you last saw him?”

“That I should call him Bob from now on.” The girl turned and ran inside.

The café on the far side of the railroad tracks opened for breakfast at 7 a.m. Bob Ashley walked his bike across the tracks and ate a hearty meal of bacon, eggs, and grits. Afterward, still carrying his long blue package, he circled the two-story yellow brick jailhouse.

He had recently concluded that two things were true. One, John needed rescue. Two, the mission was his. He was, after all, the family’s third-best marksman, after John and their father. On Tuesday night he had cleaned and loaded his weapons, all three of his guns: a six-shot revolver, a western-style pistol, and his Winchester repeating rifle.

John awoke with a violent start at 7:10 a.m. Lying on his bunk in his stifling jail cell, he struggled to make sense of his dark, disturbing dream. A buzzard circled, lights flickered in shadowed woods, familiar voices
called, but he couldn’t quite make out the words. Was it his name they called? His head ached. His left eye throbbed as though it were still there and festering. His tongue felt swollen, his throat parched.

He ignored his breakfast of cold coffee and coarse oatmeal and wished for cold water to drink and to wash his face. He lay on his bunk and tried mental telepathy. He and Bobby had seen it done at a stage show, back when Miami was still warm and welcoming. He tried to send Laura a message that he was thinking of her. He pictured what she’d be doing at that moment.

“Bobby’s bike is gone,” Laura said breathlessly. It was 7:20 a.m. “I didn’t notice it missing last night.”

“Where the hell would he . . . ?” Joe said.

Laura went to the boy’s room and dropped to her knees to peer beneath his bed. It wasn’t there. She scrambled to her feet, searched his closet, then the dresser drawers, panic rising. “Where is his rifle?” she cried out. “Where’s Bobby’s Winchester—and his pistol?”

“Oh, Lord,” Leugenia said.

Frank and Ed searched the roadsides for his bike.

Laura was chilled to the core. No, she thought. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

At noon, Bobby pedaled past the Peacock Feed Store and the Miami Bank and Trust building. He smiled, imagining their faces at home when they heard the news. He’d obsessed, then schemed, dreamed, and plotted the jailbreak, ever mindful of what John had told him: “A man has to have a plan.”

Bobby had thought out his plan. In order to break John out of jail, he decided, he had to break into the jail. He didn’t tell anyone. They might try to stop him.

As Bobby watched from the depot, Sheriff Hardie visited the jail, then sauntered down the dusty street for lunch. It was 12:45 p.m. Time to make his move. Bobby inhaled a deep breath, aware that this could be the most important and pivotal moment of his life. He worried that he and John might have to go on the run after the escape but didn’t dwell on it. John would know what to do, he was confident of that.