by Dave Shors
“No, thank you,” he replied.
“Okay,” I responded, and then went on to say, “I’m Chris. I live just up the road in McClellan Gulch.”
He nodded, but turned from the truck and started to walk again, so I pulled away, heading down the washboard gravel road to Lincoln.
I had heard someone had moved into Florence Gulch and had built a cabin. After several other chance encounters, I assumed he was the one.
Each time I saw Ted along the road, I’d stop and offer him a ride. He always declined, but each time I’d tell him a little more about myself. I also was asking around and found out from a friend, Butch Gehring, that the Kaczynski brothers had purchased their land from Butch’s father, Cliff. Butch didn’t live near Ted at the time, so he didn’t know much else about him.
Then one afternoon in mid-summer of 1972, ever persistent, I stopped one more time to offer him a ride.
Much to my surprise, he accepted.
Even though I was always the dominant talker, I learned my first details about Ted during that ten-minute ride to Lincoln. His voice was high pitched, slightly nasal, almost whiny. It didn’t take me long to get used to it, though, and I didn’t think anything more about it. But it was the kind of voice I could still pick out in a crowd of thousands.
He talked about the cabin he had built by himself, his garden, and some of the places where he liked to hike. I was amazed by the distance he covered on foot, even though he looked strong, lean and sinewy. He said he had even explored Copper Creek Basin, more than twenty miles away. He obviously was in excellent shape.
When Ted first moved to Lincoln he drove a Chevelle, which he sold or traded later for an early 1950s dark blue Chevy pickup. After that broke down, he didn’t drive it anymore. I offered to fix it for free, but he said he liked to walk and would rather travel on foot. He later sold it for a pittance, $25, to a man who had moved into the area. Within a few years of arriving in the area, Ted had rid himself of motorized transportation.
Ted continued to walk everywhere he went until he got his first bicycle in the mid-’70s. Even after he started to travel on the bike, he still spent most of his time hiking. The scope of the areas he covered on foot was astounding. He thoroughly explored entire sections north and south of Stemple Road to the top of the 6,376-foot pass and far beyond, east and west, rugged and heavily timbered areas fifteen to twenty miles from his cabin.
He was methodical and calculating, plotting every trail he explored on topographical maps that were found after his arrest in his cabin hidden among thousands of pages of documents. As we got to know each other better, we often shared information about the areas around Lincoln. Whenever I talked to Ted about trails and special places I enjoyed that were unfamiliar to him, he would listen intently. He wouldn’t usually tell me if he had been to a certain spot I described, but I knew if he had or not by his almost imperceptible signs of interest, usually a slight nodding of his head or his attentiveness.
Ted’s most distinguishing trait was his demeanor. He was the most solemn and serious person I had ever met. Like the rest of the world I now study the famous “hooded sweatshirt” sketch and the photographs from his university days. Others may look for the madness or the brilliance. I look for the Ted I knew. I search for the somber lean face I grew accustomed to seeing on the passenger side of my truck, the high cheekbones and thin neck that held his head high, with chin jutting forward. His seriousness was much less noticeable in the early years; as time passed it became far stronger. He was always friendly and spoke cordially to me, but he was always deep in thought.
His reasons for walking everywhere or riding a bicycle instead of driving a vehicle became evident after he told me one day he could live on less than $200 a year after paying property taxes. I was amazed. Anybody who was able to exist, literally, on less than $20 a month in this era was to be commended. How could he do it? I admired him. It was then I realized that license plates, insurance and upkeep, even on an old pickup, would greatly exceed his annual budget, not even considering fuel and oil expense. Not only did he believe in his way of life, he lived it.
I had learned a lot about Lincoln and the surrounding country as a boy growing up in Helena, Montana’s capital city some fifty miles up and over the Continental Divide to the southeast. My best friend’s family owned a cabin in Lincoln, and we spent many summertime weeks and months together there fishing, hunting, and exploring. We even fished the ponds located on the north end of the property I now own. How could I have known as a boy I would end up living on the very property we had explored? All that time spent fishing and hiking as a child gave me a desire to live in the Lincoln area. After buying the lower end of the gulch before Ted arrived in Lincoln, I too spent countless hours hiking and exploring, especially in the Stemple Pass area southeast of town.
All the experiences in the woods, plus time spent working for the Forest Service in the mid-’70s as a slash crew foreman, gave me a great foundation of knowledge about the mountains around Lincoln, information I was happy to share with Ted.
I also had collected a large library on the history of the area and the early pioneers and miners, their ways of life and how they survived; these topics always captivated Ted. He’d listen intently, especially when I’d describe wild edible and medicinal plants and the places where they grew nearby.
We often talked about old mines in the Stemple area. I also shared a lot of information about “my” gulch, McClellan, spots and cabins scattered from the top of McClellan Gulch to its mouth near Stemple Road, an area nearly four miles long.
I told Ted more than once how much I loved my gulch and how it was blocked off to preserve it, to keep it pristine, private and unspoiled. And most of all, I made it clear I would never sell it. The gulch is its own wilderness area that spreads out from its mouth on Stemple Road like an outstretched hand into five drainages, each with a small stream that quenches its initial thirst in the shadows of the Continental Divide.
During the first few years, our conversations centered mainly on history, survival techniques, food gathering, hunting spots and food preservation. While Ted felt comfortable and would talk freely about the land and how to live off it, other topics were clearly off limits.
He was vague about his personal life, his past, places he’d lived, and his family. Ted always became tense when asked anything personal; his deep-set eyes, dark brown and penetrating, shut out such conversations immediately. The reaction was so obvious, I was careful not to probe too deeply, respecting his space. Ted never once, in twenty-five years, mentioned anything about his mother, which was unusual. Guys always end up talking about their moms. It’s a natural thing. I never pried into his family life or questioned him about his mother. I thought perhaps she had died, maybe even in childbirth, and it was a painful event in his life.
I knew by his talk and mannerisms he had a college education, but he never shared any details, and he never mentioned he had been a math professor. His past and his family always seemed unimportant to him.
It’s amazing what you can learn from people though, even if they don’t want you to know. For instance, Ted often came into my Lincoln shop and I’d work on his bicycle. His chain was always squeaking, and after oiling it for him, I’d instruct him to keep it oiled because all the dust on the gravel roads would wear it out.
“I don’t have any oil,” he’d reply.
It was apparent from that comment he had no machines; no lawn mower, gas water pump, generator, etc. Every machine takes oil.
One time during the mid-’70s, an elderly couple who owned a summer cabin several hundred yards southwest of Ted’s cabin brought their orange International 4X4 pickup into my garage in Lincoln for work. I repaired the carburetor and then delivered the truck to their cabin on a test drive. The day was beautiful, it was midsummer, so I decided to hike the short distance to Ted’s and visit him. That first time I approached his cabin shadowed by the forest canopy, a compelling, uncomfortable, uneasy feeling came ove
r me, one I had every other time I went there. It was like someone was watching, or that I was in a foreboding and secret place where I shouldn’t be. Ted wasn’t home and his door was padlocked, so I promptly left.
TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1979 [CHRIS WAITS JOURNAL]
Long, cold winter, lots of snow. I wonder what kind of runoff we’ll have. Maybe flood this year. Haven’t seen anyone on Stemple for months except for Roy. Come to think of it, haven’t seen Ted for the longest time—maybe since last summer. Maybe he moved. Hope he’s O.K….
Once during the late ‘70s I didn’t see Ted for well over a year. I didn’t know what to think. Had he moved away? Maybe he was hurt. Who would know? He could be lying up there somewhere in the mountains. By this time Butch had built a log home just northwest of Ted’s cabin and while I was there looking at a spring, I thought I better check on Ted. I didn’t make it over that day, but planned to go as soon as I could. Then, just two or three days later, I saw Ted out walking. I stopped and visited with him and said: “You’ve been gone a long time. I haven’t seen you around.”
He agreed, but that was the end of the conversation.
When Ted stopped at my Lincoln shop just to visit I felt almost honored, because I never saw him go anywhere except to conduct business, such as buying groceries.
But for him to stop, conditions had to be just right. The big garage doors at the front of my white, concrete block building along the Stemple Pass Road 100 feet south of Lincoln’s main street had to be opened wide, and I had to be alone. It became quickly obvious our visits had to be one-on-one. If someone stopped while Ted was there, he’d be gone like a puff of smoke, disappearing even in the middle of a sentence. At first it seemed like odd behavior, until I gradually concluded that he was extremely shy and guarded around other people.
Ted would enter the garage, but never stray too far inside, usually staying close to the big, open doors, while I’d weld or repair equipment.
I remember one discussion we had about gardening when Ted started to talk about his vegetables. He liked to grow carrots, onions, parsnips, other root crops, and potatoes.
Knowing he had no power, plumbing or pump, and that his garden was uphill from his spring-fed stream, I asked him, “Ted, how do you water your potatoes?”
“I carry water up to my garden in buckets,” was his reply.
“Doesn’t that take a long time, and isn’t it a lot of work?” I asked.
“I have plenty of time, and the work doesn’t bother me,” he said. By then he had grown a beard, which was full but didn’t extend much above his mouth line or too far down his neck.
Ted raised an amazing garden, especially considering the climate the Lincoln area offers at almost 5,000 feet above sea level. Heavily timbered mountain gulches are not noted as garden spots. But Florence Gulch had a reputation among the old-timers as a place where they could grow things that wouldn’t make it anywhere else in the Lincoln Valley. During the 1950s a man named Jack Parks lived in a cabin built in the late 1930s just above Ted’s place. Parks was able to grow huge pumpkins in his garden. My wife, Betty, still remembers seeing them as a young girl when her family went to visit Mr. Parks.
There seems to be a natural inversion created in Florence Gulch, one of those mountain idiosyncrasies no one can really explain. My theory is the warm air that rises from the valley floor becomes trapped in the gulch by cool air above, at the foot of Baldy Mountain. The result is far fewer killer frosts than elsewhere and thus, a longer growing season.
But growing anything, anywhere around Lincoln, even in Florence Gulch, is still a challenge. The high mountain valleys can be nipped by frost any month of the year, plus there are plenty of animals to contend with. Ted had a tough time keeping rodents, rabbits, and other small animals away from his crops. Deer were a problem, too, but he had much better success in fencing them out. It required nearly a constant vigil to keep the small animals at bay. At night he often sat atop a pyramid-shaped stile that crossed his eight-foot-high fence, spotlighting and shooting small garden invaders with his .22 at his lower garden.
After Ted expanded his garden and started a second plot to the southwest of his cabin, he had enough extra vegetables to start drying them to keep and eat during the long Montana winter. Then he needed a place to store his dried food where it would keep, and wouldn’t be eaten by animals.
One afternoon as I was driving him home from Lincoln, our conversation shifted to root cellars and how to construct them, a page out of the basic survival notes of the old-time Lincoln homesteaders. We discussed several designs, but the one I recommended was similar to a mine adit: an underground horizontal tunnel leading into a hillside, the tunnel reinforced with timbers, and with a wooden entrance and door. Such a tunnel would be labor intensive, but inexpensive to build, much easier and cheaper than building with rocks or concrete blocks. I suggested that with a proper door, and if the tunnel reached far enough into the hill, not only would food keep without freezing, but it would also be a good place to keep warm even during the most bitter cold weather. Even at -50° F., the temperature inside such a cellar wouldn’t drop below +40°.
Ted didn’t really give me much feedback about my suggestions, so I didn’t know which method he would choose, or if he would even build a root cellar. But I did try to give him as much advice as possible, because I knew his construction techniques were crude at best.
When I finally saw the entrance to his root cellar, I was hiking on a nearby hill just to the southwest of Ted’s cabin surveying some timber I had heard might be logged. After walking through the stand of trees, noting which might be worth harvesting, I dropped down to Ted’s.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. His new root cellar entrance was built from every type of scrap lumber imaginable. No care was taken to saw angles on any of the boards and slabs of wood, and the many holes and spaces between the boards were filled in and covered with tinfoil, plastic scraps, sections of corrugated roofing, and pieces of aluminum, anything he could find.
I had never seen construction like that in my life, but I didn’t say anything about it to Ted, not wanting to hurt his feelings.
After looking at the root cellar entrance in the hillside, I crossed the creek and went to his door, which was located on the east side of the cabin. It was padlocked. Feeling that same overwhelming sensation of uneasiness again, I left.
Ted’s cabin had its shortcomings, too, even though it was built much better than the root cellar and its entrance. His cabin, originally painted a brick red color, had no eaves on either gable end, and just inches of overhang on the sides. Green asphalt roofing, which covered the roof in horizontal rows, folded over the roof line onto the gable ends where it was attached with an almost solid row of roofing nails. The pitch of the roof was steep enough for the area’s heavy snows, but with no eaves, the snow that slid off would pile up against the sides of the cabin and the moisture would eventually rot the wood; the only possible benefit being that the snow would act as insulation around the base of the cabin in extremely cold weather. Since the cabin wasn’t connected to a foundation but was propped on Sakrete pillars, the space under it wasn’t properly insulated so snow against the building probably served a useful purpose. The cabin had only two small windows, one on the south and one on the north; the north window was placed much higher than normal, just under the roof’s edge. An aluminum pipe ran through the wall of his cabin to the garden on the west side, a convenient means of funneling his human waste to fertilize the garden.
Ted had trails everywhere around his cabin, well traveled paths leading off in all directions. A large, gnarled old Douglas-fir growing out of an outcropping of rocks at the northwest corner of his land was used as an observation tree. He climbed branches to reach a point twenty feet above the ground where the limbs were cut away, enabling him to see anyone approaching from the lower end of the gulch. Ted had numerous observation points in trees and rock outcroppings throughout the forest.
As much as Ted loved the wo
ods and nature, the thing that always surprised me when I was around his place was all the junk lying around: bottles, cans, plastic jugs, a huge garbage heap of burned cans, and every other sort of thing.
The trash didn’t make sense. It was out of place, not unlike the dark, almost sinister side of his character that I saw on rare occasions in later years, and only at times when he wasn’t aware I was nearby. Ted was careful and calculating when he was around people. The few who knew him in town—the librarian, store clerks, the mailman—knew only the side of Ted he wanted them to see: quiet, but always friendly and cordial. For a long time, I was fooled, too.
I never told a soul other than Betty about this dark side, and she never told anyone other than me about things she noticed that didn’t fit Ted’s carefully managed persona.
I was in a unique position to learn things about Ted nobody else could know. He loved my gulch and the total privacy it offered him. Betty and I were the only ones who knew how much time he spent up there. Even when I didn’t see him walking along the timbered trail above the old tailings piles on the west side of the gulch, I knew he was there because the dogs, who were penned up near the trail, would bark until we went outside to quiet them. Also, when we let them out to run every morning and afternoon, they’d race excitedly up the trail, barking and following his scent.
Our dogs could smell him, and they hated him. He hated them as well. It seemed like all animals reacted aggressively toward Ted.
There were a lot of times when Ted spent more days up my gulch than he did at his home cabin. I never mentioned this to anyone. I didn’t want to get into a situation where people would say, “You let Ted up there, why won’t you let us in?” There were a few people, like Butch, who knew they were welcome. But Butch never asked to go up my gulch.
Ted was always articulate, spoke intelligently, and had a good vocabulary, but it wasn’t something he’d ever flaunt. I enjoyed visiting with him, always feeling like we had a lot in common.