For Sale —American Paradise by Willie Drye Page B

tossed a sack at the teller. “Throw it in here, that’s what’s next,” he said.
    There was about $4,300 in bills and coins within sight of the robbers, and Wallace started tossing it into the sack. But he did not open any drawers containing more cash, and Ashley apparently was unaware that there was more cash at hand.
    Wallace picked up a sack containing about $30 in pennies.
    â€œThrow it in,” Ashley commanded.
    Another gun-toting robber appeared. His name was “Kid” Lowe, a hardened criminal from Chicago who’d come south and somehow connected with John Ashley.
    Lowe asked how much money was in the sack.
    Told there was about $4,300, Lowe was angered.
    â€œWhere’s the rest?” he demanded, shoving a gun in Wallace’s face.
    â€œThere is no more,” Wallace said. “This is a small bank and has only a small supply of cash.”
    Lowe grabbed Wallace and shoved him into the lobby, where several other terrified customers were waiting.
    â€œWhich one of you fellows can run a car?” Lowe demanded.
    A customer named Frank Coventry said he could drive a car, and Lowe ordered him to drive the three robbers out of town.
    What happened next has been debated for nearly a century.
    Somehow, John Ashley was shot in the head but miraculously not killed. One account of the incident says Bob Ashley fired his gun in jubilation at the successful holdup and accidentally hit his brother. Another account says that as Coventry was driving out of town, Kid Lowe turned to fire a shot to discourage anyone who might be pursuing them, and the bullet struck one of the car’s window frames, ricocheted, and struck Ashley. Still another explanation was that Ashley accidentally shot himself with his own gun. And Ashley later would claim that Lowe was trying to kill him so he wouldn’t have to give Ashley a share of the loot.
    However the shot was fired, the bullet struck Ashley below the chin and lodged behind his right eye. Somehow, he was not killed, but it was a severe wound—one that probably would have been fatal if left unattended.
    Coventry sped south on the Dixie Highway. Ashley was losing a lot of blood from his wound and passed out briefly, Coventry said later. About ten miles south of Stuart, Coventry was ordered to stop. The three robbers got out. Coventry was told to return to Stuart, and if he so much as looked back as he was driving away, they’d kill him.
    Coventry later told police that the three had horses waiting for them when they got out of his car. Despite his wound and weakness from loss of blood, John Ashley was still able to mount a horse and gallop into the swamp, Coventry said.
    As they disappeared into the Everglades, carloads of heavily armed men were speeding after them. They knew the fugitives would head for their familiar hideouts. At one point that afternoon, the lawmen were certain they had their quarry surrounded. But John Ashley’s intimate knowledge of the Everglades saved them, and somehow they eluded the posse.
    By nightfall, about a hundred men, some of them on horseback, were thrashing through the Glades, looking for the bank robbers. John Ashley, still losing blood, was weakening and in intense pain. Still, he managed to elude the posse for two days.
    Finally, he’d had enough. Ashley gave himself up on the morning of February 25.
    But Bob Ashley and Kid Lowe were still on the run, and they’d taken the money with them.
    The cops took John Ashley straight to a surgeon’s office in West Palm Beach. By that night, he was back in the Palm Beach County Jail. Eventually, he would wear a glass eye in the socket where his right eye had been.
    While the cops-and-robbers drama was playing out in the wilds of southern Florida, Edwin Menninger, a student at Washburn College in Topeka, Kansas, was busy preparing for a career in medicine. He hadn’t given too much thought to his choice of professions. His father was Dr.