#stringtown dance

[westdallasgang]

Stringtown Dance Murder August 5, 1932

During this time, Clyde was wanted for a Hillsboro, TX murder he was involved in as the getaway driver. Barrow gang member Ray Hamilton, who decided to go straight and work in Michigan with his father, returned to Dallas after he was laid off his job and gets falsely accused of the same Hillsboro murder. Ray, now a wanted man, rejoins Clyde and Bonnie. Bonnie had just served 2 months in jail and was seeing Clyde in secret behind her mother's back. Clyde, Ray, and a third participant named Ross Dyer, decide to wait for things to cool off in Texas and head to Oklahoma. Bonnie does not join the rest of the gang and instead, chose to stay at home with her mother.

As the gang are pulling into Stringtown, Oklahoma, they pick up a hitchhiker along the way and Ross Dyer spots an outdoor country dance in an open pavilion and wants to stop by in search for some moonshine. The trio stuck out like a sore thumb in their flashy gangster suits while everyone else are in overalls and worn out clothes, already raising suspicion towards themselves. Bootleg liquor was being passed around, the lawmen were aware but allowed it unless trouble escalated. Once the boys filled up their flasks, they agreed to hang around a while.

Ross and the hitchhiker were interested in the dance unlike Clyde and Ray who were wanted for murder. Allowing their friends to have their fun, the wanted men stayed in the car, reparking numerous times to avoid getting blocked in. Sheriff Maxwell and Deputy Moore receive complaints from angry drunken men about Ross and his new friend mingling with their girlfriends. The lawmen standby and take notice of them going back and forth from Clyde's lavish ride to the dance floor, and quickly catch on to their suspicious behavior.

Leaving no choice but to arrest them first, they approach their car window, and Deputy Moore starts announcing their arrest. But before he could fully get his words out, Clyde and Ray fire their guns without hesitation. Moore dies instantly, but Sheriff Maxwell miraculously survives six gunshot wounds. A two man band were playing that night, one guitar player and one fiddler. The guitarist indicated that when he hit the first chords of "Way Down Yonder", "Hell broke loose, and I mean hell." Ross, who was on the dancefloor, did not make the getaway car and got left behind with the hitchhiker. Ross later gets captured in Texas. The Stringtown dance marks the first time Clyde or Ray had ever killed a policeman.

[watermelonlipstick]

Back

School has been kicking my ass lately, but I found some time to write this little warm and fuzzy nothing. I’d love any advice or critiques!

Title: Back

Pairing: Sam Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 1915

Summary: Getting back to find the reader has been waiting for the Winchesters to get home from a hunt, Sam is a little nervous and more than a little happy.

Warnings: mutual pining fluff only!

           Sam and Dean walked down bunker stairs slowly, their bones aching with the work of the last week. They had changed into clean clothes to drive through the night back to Kansas, but their hands and hair bore the telltale mud and blood of a hunt, and they badly needed to shower. Walking into the library, Sam took his duffel bag off his shoulder and dropped it unceremoniously but quietly.

           Curled up in a chair on the other end of the table, you slept wrapped in a blanket and draped over the old wood. Your hair ground into your folded arms and the huge book you had been reading, and the pressure of your head on your cheek pouched your lips out a touch. Sam brushed his palms on his jeans somewhat fruitlessly in an effort not to dirty your face as he brushed a chunk of hair back from your temple.

           “Hey,” he whispered in a low voice, his hand hovering over your shoulder. “We’re home.”

           You woke with a small jolt, peeking open one eye to look up at Sam. A sleepy smile spread across your eyes as you arched back to stretch. “Hey, handsome,” you answered in the croaky voice of a nap. “How’d it go?”

           “All good, no major injuries. You should be in bed,” he said, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.

           “Carry me?” you asked. The shy smile on your face betrayed you as only half joking.

           Sam chuckled as Dean came over to them. “He smells like sweat and swamp monster ass,” Dean offered.

           “Thanks Dean,” Sam said sarcastically, his voice still low. “He’s right though. Still want me to?”

           You nodded with closed eyes, your contented smile showing through even as you yawned. “Dean, there’s lasagna in the fridge if you want it.” As an aside to Sam you mouthed, “vegetarian.” Sam’s eyes crinkled at the edges as he offered his arms out to you. You got up and put your arms around Sam’s neck, letting him ease you up into his chest. Your calves and socked feet dangled over his forearm.

           “You’re the best,” Dean insisted, gripping an invisible fist of victory. He gathered up the blanket and stacked it on top of your stomach.

           “Don’t stay up too late,” you hummed to Dean while nuzzling your head into the crook of Sam’s neck.

           “I won’t, kid. I promise.” He leaned over and kissed you on the cheek. “Goodnight.”

           Sam nodded to Dean over you, jerking his head toward the kitchen to show he’d meet his brother in a minute. He carried you back to your room and lowered you down onto your bed before spreading the blanket out on top of you.

           “You didn’t need to wait up for us,” Sam said.

           “I know, but I wanted to see you.”

           “Well I won’t lie, it feels a lot more like home to come back to you than an empty bunker,” he smiled.

           “Oh yeah?” you asked with a sly grin.

           “Definitely.”

           “Will you come sleep here?” Your eyebrow crooked up in question. It was loaded, definitely a pretty big step further down the tightrope you and Sam had been walking. But it had felt right to ask, and you fought back the impulse to take it back or turn it into a joke. Sam’s eyebrows lifted in soft, hopeful surprise, and it changed his whole face.

           “I can if you want me to,” he answered, running a hand through his hair. “Are you sure?”

           “Yeah, I think so.” The hesitation in your voice made his pulse race despite his fatigue.

           “Uh, ok, yeah. Just let me eat something and shower and I’ll be here, I promise. Don’t wait up though.”

           You nodded, trying to fight a smile by biting your lip, then pulled the blanket up under your chin and closed your eyes. Sam lingered in the doorframe for a moment, watching the light from the hallway fall on the swells and angles of your body before going to the kitchen with Dean.

           Dean was already halfway into a plate of lasagna by the time Sam got there and took off his jacket.

           “Dude, she’s outdone herself. This is awesome,” Dean said through the last third of a mouthful before swallowing.

           “Yeah, she’s pretty great, isn’t she?” Sam asked as he walked to the fridge.

           Dean looked up smugly over his fork. “What’s going on with that anyway?”

           Sam closed the microwave door on a plate of lasagna and turned toward Dean. “Uh, I mean, I don’t know. She asked me to sleep with her.” Dean half-choked on a bite, coughing and grabbing at his beer bottle. His brother realized his mistake, making an exasperated face before correcting himself. “Not like that, Jesus. Like literally sleep in her room.” Dean pounded his chest with a closed fist and fought through a hoarse throat.

           “Are you going to?”

           “I mean, yeah. Why, should I not?” Sam’s eyes widened.

           “I don’t know what you should or shouldn’t do, man. Just seems awfully boyfriend-experience to me,” Dean said, his hands up in faux surrender.

           “Well, yeah,” Sam conceded, getting his plate out of the microwave.

           “So you’re her boyfriend?” Dean looked incredulous.

           “Dean, I don’t know,” Sam whined as he sat down across from his brother.

           “Fine, whatever, I’ll leave you alone about it. But know that I’m going to be pissed if things get weird between you two and she leaves. Aside from the extra backup, I can’t go back to Marie Calendar and beef jerky after this.”

           Sam nodded placatingly.  

           You had dozed off, waking up when some lizard part of your brain realized the light had shifted in the room. Sam filled the doorway in an old t-shirt and flannel pajama pants slung low enough on his hips to expose a little sliver of skin when he walked. The smell of shampoo crossed the room as if being unfurled from his still-damp hair, the clean familiarity of it making your joints relax even further than they had in sleep. He saw the heavy lids of your eyes for the second time that night, and felt a pang of nervous affection.

           “Do you still want me to, ah..?” Sam whispered like a gravel road at dusk.

           You nodded, folding back the comforter next to you. He walked over, messing with the hem of his shirt like a shy teenager before crawling gently into bed. He didn’t know what to do. It felt like the first time he’d ever slow-danced with a girl at some stupid school formal—Mandy Jacobsen, freshman year of high school, wearing a shirt Dean had outgrown but was still too loose to be tucked in properly and his dad’s shoes—not knowing where to put his hands or whether it was better or worse to press against you. You waited a beat before rolling to your back to mirror him.

           “Is this too weird?” you asked.

           “No, no. Sorry, I just—I’m just a little keyed up from the hunt I guess.” Sam cursed himself in his head; you knew they’d driven over 7 hours to get back, it made no sense that he’d still be on an adrenaline rush. He was grateful when you didn’t say anything.

           “Was it gross? When you guys had me look up bunyips I was so glad I didn’t come with on the stomp-around-in-the-swamp job.”

           He chuckled quietly. “You would’ve hated it. We had to change before Dean would even unlock the car.”

           “How’d you get back to the motel to change if he wouldn’t unlock it?”

           “No, like out on the side of the road.”

           “So you and Dean were naked on the side of the road in—where was it?”

           “Stringtown, Oklahoma.”

           “In Stringtown, Oklahoma, and didn’t get arrested?”

           “It’s pretty rural.”

           “Well thank God for that,” you giggled, turning onto your side to face him. “I would’ve had to take that stupid little Volkswagen to come and get you. You’d have needed a double knee replacement by the time we crossed the state line.”

            “Then I’m even more glad.” Sam’s profile was fuzzy in the dark but you could hear his smile. When he turned to face you the tiny amount of ambient light glinted off his teeth. “I missed you,” he added, so quietly you almost couldn’t hear him from inches away.

           “I missed you too,” you breathed.

           Sam shifted to his side and tentatively reached out to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear. “I didn’t mean to wake you up, you should go back to sleep.”

           “Are you going to leave if I do?”

           “Not if you don’t want me to.” His thumb was gentle and callused against your cheek, brushing absentmindedly.

           “I don’t want you to.” You twisted away from him to curl back against his chest. Sam got those same heart-thumping sweaty palms he had with Mandy Jacobsen and hoped you couldn’t feel the thrum of his pulse against you, suddenly aware of how thin the fabric separating you two was. He felt gangly and awkward in his filled-out 32 year old body, and kind of stupid for it; less than an hour ago he’d held you in his arms and he couldn’t even estimate the amount of times his hands had roamed your skin, feeling for broken bones and shards of glass or stitching up a gash. He was trying to remember what the natural thing to do here was when you reached behind to his side and pulled his arm over you, laying his palm out below your sternum and lacing your fingers in his. His hand spanned a wide swath of your torso and made you feel delicate, like something precious. After a moment, Sam let the weight of his arm settle over top of you like a cloak, the pressure soothing and protective.

           You smelled like warm skin, fresh sheets, and the orange blossom soap you loved from the farmer’s market in the next town over. Sam inhaled deeply, nestling his face against your hair and feeling the heat from you and your body-warmed comforter seep into him, so opposite from the freezing bog water he’d been up to his thighs in earlier that day. He was having a hard time coming up with something that would be better than this and thought it might actually be ramping up his nerves, comfortable as it was. Instinctively he pressed his lips to your hair, feeling a jolt in his chest when it made you lean back into him.

           Seems awfully ‘boyfriend-experience’ to me ran through his head and he felt an overwhelming ache. If this was the boyfriend experience, he wanted nothing else in the world. He felt your breath deepen under his palm and the weight of your body began to sink a bit in that telltale way that told him you were falling back asleep. Sam listened for a long minute to the rhythm of it.

           “I love you,” he breathed, just to hear what it sounded like.

           “I love you too, Sam,” you murmured, barely opening your mouth.

           Sam had no time to feel embarrassed you’d heard him, hadn’t been fully asleep, as his chest swelled with helium. He shifted his calf to cover your cold feet and smiled, all to himself, into the darkness. It took him hours to drift off, but he didn’t care. There was no place he’d rather be.

-

Thanks again for reading! If you liked it, check out my Masterlist or send me a request!

Tags: @sams-sass @vxnderlindes @deanwinchesterswitch @akshi8278 @itsjensenanddean @flannellover67 @weepingwillowphoenix @tj-drinks-tea @whatareyousearchingfordean @winchest09 @winchestergirl2 @samwisethegr8 @nobxdy @nurse-sarahrn @lovers-in-japan-reign-of-love @deanwanddamons @stressedoutkitten @winchestershiresauce @tatted-trina6 @percico-heronstairs @downanddirtydean @queenoftheunderdark​ @lyarr24​ @wonder-cole​ @that-one-gay-girl​ @fairlyspnfanfic​ @treat-winchesterswith-kindness​ @mimaria420​ @huntheimpossible​  (s)

And as always, if you want to be on my taglist, were on the taglist and changed your handle, or I lost track of it, please let me know!

[lifelastingcouples]

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Champion Barrow

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born in 1910 in Rowena, Texas, the second of three children. Her father was a bricklayer who died when Bonnie was four years old. Her widowed mother moved her family back to her parents' home in Cement City, an industrial suburb in West Dallas where she worked as a seamstress.

In her second year in high school, Parker met Roy Thornton. The couple dropped out of school and were married on the 25ᵗʰ of September 1926, six days before her 16ᵗʰ birthday. Their marriage proved to be short-lived. They never divorced, but their paths never crossed again after January 1929. She was still wearing his wedding ring when she died. Thornton was in prison when he heard of her death. He commented, "I'm glad they went out like they did. It's much better than being caught".

Clyde Champion Barrow was born in 1909 into a poor farming family in Ellis County, Texas, southeast of Dallas. He was the fifth of seven children. The family moved to Dallas in the early 1920s, part of a migration pattern from rural areas to the city where many settled in the urban slum of West Dallas. The Barrows spent their first months in West Dallas living under their wagon until they got enough money to buy a tent.

Clyde was first arrested in late 1926, at age 17, after running when police confronted him over a rental car that he had failed to return on time. His second arrest was with brother Ivan M. “Buck” Barrow soon after for possession of stolen turkeys. Clyde had some legitimate jobs during 1927 through 1929, but he also cracked safes, robbed stores, and stole cars.

Bonnie met Clyde on the 5ᵗʰ of January 1930 at the home of Clyde's friend. Clyde was 20 years old, and Bonnie was 19. Both were smitten immediately. But their romance was interrupted when Clyde was arrested and convicted of auto theft in April 1930 at the age of 21.

Clyde  escaped the prison shortly after his incarceration using a weapon Bonnie smuggled to him. He was recaptured shortly after and sent back to prison. Clyde was repeatedly sexually assaulted while in prison, and he retaliated by attacking and killing his tormentor with a lead pipe, crushing his skull. This was his first killing. Another inmate, who was already serving a life sentence, claimed responsibility.

In order to avoid hard labor in the fields, Clyde purposely had his two toes chopped off by either him or another inmate in late January 1932. Because of this, he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. However, Clyde was set free six days after his intentional injury because without his knowledge, his mother had successfully petitioned for his release.

After his release from prison in 1932 Clyde formed a gang and robbed grocery stores and gas stations. In February 1932, he and Fults began a series of robberies, primarily of stores and gas stations. Their goal was to collect enough money and firepower to launch a raid against Eastham prison. On April 19, Parker and Fults were captured in a failed hardware store burglary in Kaufman in which they had intended to steal firearms. Parker was released from jail in a few months, after the grand jury failed to indict her; Fults was tried, convicted, and served time. He never rejoined the gang.

On April 30, Clyde was the getaway driver in a robbery in Hillsboro during which store owner J.N. Bucher was shot and killed. Bucher's wife identified Clyde from police photographs as one of the shooters, although he had stayed outside in the car.

Later in 1932, Bonnie and Clyde began traveling with Raymond Hamilton, a young gunman. Hamilton left them several months later and was replaced by William Daniel Jones in November 1932.

On August 5, Barrow was drinking alcohol with Hamilton, at a country dance in Stringtown, Oklahoma when Sheriff C.G. Maxwell and Deputy Eugene C. Moore approached them in the parking lot. Clyde and Raymond opened fire, killing Moore and gravely wounding Maxwell. Moore was the first law officer that Barrow and his gang had killed; they eventually murdered nine. Hamilton left them several months later and was replaced by William Daniel Jones in November 1932.

Ivan M. “Buck” Barrow, brother of Clyde, was released from the Texas State Prison on the 23ʳᵈ of March 1933, having been granted a full pardon by the governor. He quickly joined Clyde, bringing his wife, Blanche, so the group now numbered five persons. This gang embarked upon a series of bold robberies which made headlines across the country. They escaped capture in various encounters with the law. However, their activities made law enforcement efforts to apprehend them even more intense.

Barrow did not see warning signs at a bridge under construction on June 10, while driving with Jones and Parker near Wellington, Texas, and the car flipped into a ravine. Clyde sustained third-degree burns to her right leg. In July 1933, the gang checked in to the Red Crown Tourist Court south of Platte City, Missouri. Bonnie and William Daniel went into town to purchase bandages and atropine sulfate to treat Parker's leg. The druggist contacted Sheriff Holt Coffey, who put the cabins under surveillance. The sheriff contacted Captain Baxter, who called for reinforcements from Kansas City, including an armored car. Sheriff Coffey led a group of officers toward the cabins at 11 p.m., armed with Thompson submachine guns.  But in the gunfight which ensued, the .45 caliber Thompsons proved no match for Clydes's .30 caliber BAR, stolen on July 7 from the National Guard armory. The gang had evaded the law once again, but Buck Barrow had sustained a bullet wound that blasted a large hole in his forehead skull bone and exposed his injured brain, and Blanche was nearly blinded by glass fragments in both her eyes. On another fire exchange on July 24, Buck was shot again nd Blanche was captured.

On the 28ᵗʰ of November 1933 a Dallas grand jury delivered a murder indictment against Bonnie and Clyde for the killing – in January of that year, nearly ten months earlier – of Tarrant County Deputy Malcolm Davis. it was Clyde's first warrant for murder.

On the 16ᵗʰ of January 16 1934, Clyde orchestrated the escape of Hamilton, Methvin, and several others inmates in the “Eastham Prison Breakout”. During his escape, Clyde's Gang member Joe Palmer fatally wounded Major Joe Crowson. This attack attracted the full power of the Texas and federal government to the manhunt for Bonnie and Clyde. The Texas Department of Corrections contacted former Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer and persuaded him to hunt down the gang. He was retired, but his commission had not expired. He accepted the assignment as a Texas Highway Patrol officer, secondarily assigned to the prison system as a special investigator, and given the specific task of taking down Bonnie and Clyde. For 20 years, Frank Hamer had acquired a formidable reputation as a result of several spectacular captures and the shooting of a number of Texas criminals. He was officially credited with 53 kills, and suffered seventeen wounds. Prison boss Simmons said publicly that Hamer had been his first choice, but the other rangers contacted declined because they were reluctant to shoot a woman.

On the 1ˢᵗ of April 1934, Bonnie and Clyde encountered two young highway patrolmen near Grapevine, Texas. Before the officers could draw their guns, they were shot. On April 6, 1934, a constable at Miami, Oklahoma fell mortally wounded by Bonnie and Clyde, who also abducted a police chief, whom they wounded.

On the 13ᵗʰ April 1934, an FBI agent, through investigation in the vicinity of Ruston, Louisiana, obtained information which definitely placed Bonnie and Clyde in a remote section southwest of that community.

On the evening of the 21ˢᵗ of May 1934, a police posse comprised of six members from Texas and Louisiana police departments including Frank Hamer set up an ambush on the main road into Bienville Parish. The posse waited for Bonnie and Clyde for the entire night, and the next day and night. Then, as they were nearly giving up, the duo arrived driving a stolen Ford V8 at a high speed. Police used Methvin's gather as a bait planting him with his truck on the side of the road to distract Clyde and force him into the lane closer to the posse. Before Bonnie or Clyde had time even to exit the car, the police opened fire. Clyde was killed instantly by a shot to the head, and one of the officers recounted hearing Bonnie scream as she realized he was dead. The officers emptied their entire supply of ammunition into the car, firing 130 rounds in all. The coroner’s report detailed 17 holes in Clyde’s body and 26 holes in Bonnie’s body. Unofficially, there may have been many more.

Bonnie and Clyde