Unabomber

by Dave Shors

  What made this conversation so interesting to Ted, and something I of course didn’t pick up on at the time, wasn’t the description of the mines themselves and the riches, especially gold, taken from the area, but what was still lying around the deserted mine shafts and mills. I talked about an old assay house alongside one of the mill buildings, with roof timbers fallen and side walls of weathered lumber tilting in dangerous arrays, where sulphur sticks were still scattered in and around an old wooden box. Also, small ceramic crucibles used in the fire-assay of ore could still be found lying about the front of the building. We talked at length about these and some metal objects I had seen near the sites.

  The next time I hiked into the old mines, several months later, everything was gone: no sulphur, no crucibles, no metal objects I had described.

  I never mentioned it to Ted, nor did I ask if he was the one who went up there and took everything.

  FROM FBI INVENTORY OF ITEMS SEIZED

  AT KACZYNSKI HOME CABIN

  L59—Container of yellow crystals with plastic bags.

  L60—Container of white powder.

  L61—Six sealed bottles labeled sulphur.

  MB26—One small white ceramic crucible.

  MB27—Two off-white colored ceramic crucible lids.

  One day when I was visiting with Ted, we got onto the subject of insect pests: ticks, mosquitoes, horse flies, deer flies that can make life in the mountains a pain. More than a nuisance, they can be truly dangerous at certain times of the year. Ticks are the first bloodsucking insects to appear in the spring. They prefer dry, brushy, warm areas instead of cool, damp, wet areas. I suggested it’s better to always wear dark clothing; you’ll get far fewer ticks on you.

  The next pests to appear are the mosquitoes, which hatch out after the spring thaw and high runoff water. Their eggs can last for years without hatching while waiting for the high water to reach them. They’re the opposite of the ticks in that they thrive in the cool, damp, wet and shaded areas, and really come out in the late afternoon and evening.

  The very worst, by far, are horse flies and deer flies. They hatch out in midsummer and are most active during the hottest parts of the day, flying and sitting around the brush and trees. When you walk through the brush, they’ll come at you and when bitten you’ll swear they have taken a chunk right out of you, causing the bite to bleed.

  During our discussion about insects and what could be done beyond the normal swatting and swearing, I related a story told to me by an old miner from Boulder, Montana, many years ago. The miner, who had spent his whole life in the woods, explained his remedy to prevent ticks and biting insects from attaching themselves or boring into the skin. Take a teaspoon of flowers of sulphur every day, he said. It can be swallowed dry and washed down, or mixed with water or another fluid as a drink. Flowers of sulphur comes in a jar or plastic bottle. It’s ground sulphur with the look and consistency of pale yellow chalk.

  FROM FBI INVENTORY

  MB 148—One white plastic jar, with white metal cap, label “Rexall Sublimed Sulfur, N.F. (Flowers of Sulfur [sic]), Parasiticide-Scabicide”

  MB 178—One white plastic bottle, with white plastic cap, label “Flowers of Sulfur USP, Whiteworth Inc., Gardena, Ca. 90248, NDC 0923-3500-03,” with masking tape around the base, with a small white square price tag “Bergums 217-6956 L5GJB $5.17”

  I’ve tried the old miner’s remedy in the past, and it works. When parasite infestations are particularly bad, I told Ted, the treatment of ingesting flowers of sulphur can be enhanced by bathing first and then applying a dissolved solution of sulphur and hot water to your skin, letting it dry and leaving it on. The downside is that you better be alone, because the odor emanating from your body is unpleasant, to say the least, causing you to smell like rotten eggs.

  ON WALL OF KACZYNSKI SECRET SHACK

  [Ted had penciled the old miner’s instructions on a piece of plywood, which he then used to cover holes in the outside cabin wall. Part of the plywood had been ripped away, probably by an animal, so only a few words remained; they had been protected from the weather for years by an overlapping piece of wood.]

  Then drink what… keep that up,… soap baths; let on you…

  To my knowledge Ted worked only two, shortlived jobs in all the years he lived in Lincoln.

  When he first moved to Florence Gulch he cut posts to sell at a local post-and-pole manufacturing operation. He didn’t last long. I never knew if he quit because he was against tree cutting or if the work didn’t suit him. I assumed it was the latter, because his second bit of employment was peeling logs for Butch Gehring during the mid-’80s, a pretty strenuous job of skinning the bark off with a drawknife, a double-handled, sharp-edged blade that’s pulled toward the worker. I remember Butch saying at the time that Ted didn’t last more than a couple of hours before he walked off the job, saying that peeling logs wasn’t for him.

  Ted made only two other inquiries about employment in the Lincoln area that I am aware of, one at Garland’s Town & Country general store and one at the Blackfoot Market. Both contacts were in his later years in Lincoln, and I was surprised when I heard Ted had applied for work that could include time at a sales counter at either store. Stocking shelves, doing inventory, bookkeeping, or something like that might do, but I couldn’t envision him working around people. At the time, I assumed he was desperate for money. It was so unlike his character to ask for employment in a public place.

  Ted and I had many conversations about our remote, wild country southwest of Lincoln. We also talked about the seasonal extremes and how the mountains could be calm and benign one day, and then ravaging and deadly the next. Ted knew the full range of each season, because he lived outside much of the time. He was tolerant and tough about the weather, able to adapt to almost anything. Whether he was out walking at -30° F. with his beard and moustache completely covered with icicles, hiking up a steep mountain at a hot and steamy 95° with insects biting madly after a quick rain shower, fighting his way through a mosquito-infested swampy marsh with willows so thick he had to hack his way, or trying to negotiate his way down an ice-covered talus slope after a freezing rain, he not only survived and endured, but he did so without a complaint. Whatever nature dished out he would readily accept.

  He never said to me: If I only had power and a furnace, it would be so much easier to stay warm and get through the winter. It just didn’t seem to matter to him, the cold, the physical work, the inconvenience, anything.

  If he were caught too far from his campsite or either cabin he would just roll up in his coat—no matter where he was, at the edge of a meadow or in the trees—lie down and spend the night.

  Ted wasn’t intimidated by being out in the deep, dark woods at night. He often traveled and hunted at night. When he spotlighted rabbits, for example, he followed a fresh set of tracks through the snow until the rabbit would stop. He’d shine a flashlight at the animal and then try to shoot it in the eye, which would show up in the faint light. If he hit his target, the rabbit died instantly. If he missed, the scared rabbit would bolt away, sometimes zigzagging through the snow for miles before it would stop again. Never giving up, Ted told me he would follow it, even through difficult terrain and deep snow, often crossing other tracks that would make the stalk even tougher. When the rabbit stopped again, Ted got a second chance to bag his prey. Sometimes it was a very difficult way to procure supper.

  Ted was a good shot, and I later learned that he bragged to himself in his journals about how he seldom missed. He kept track of every round of ammunition he had, every round fired, including his misses, and how many rounds of each caliber he had remaining and buried in caches for reserve. He was secretive about his weapons. You never saw him carrying guns near a road or another place where he might be spotted. In addition to knives—G.I. survival and hunting types—and a bow and arrow, he owned six guns: a 30-06, 30-30, .25 caliber Raven automatic, .22 rifle, .22 pistol, and a homemade zip gun made from the barrel of an old air pist
ol with a crude trigger device and firing pin manufactured from scrap metal parts.

  Ted and I never discussed the perilous circumstances one could confront in the forest, especially at night. Though we talked many times about grizzly and black bears, prowling mountain lions, and wolverines, Ted never once indicated he was afraid of wild animals. Most people couldn’t be paid enough to spend a night alone in the wilderness, and yet it didn’t seem to bother him in the least. If not harnessed by fear, a hunter or hiker could cover many miles on a moonlit night.

  As more people moved to Lincoln and the area around Stemple, they were always curious about Ted. They’d see him walking or riding his bike and then ask someone about him. People in town would say, “Ask Chris, he’s been up there longer than anyone.”

  When people asked me about Ted they would say, “Who’s that hermit friend of yours?” or “What do you know about your friend the hermit?” Hardly anyone who had seen Ted around or had heard about him understood him. Stigmatized by his appearance and lifestyle, he was blamed for every curious or puzzling act reported in the area. If someone’s dog disappeared, people would tell me, “That hermit friend of yours probably ate him.” If there was an act of vandalism, a theft or even a flat tire on a vehicle parked in the forest—anything—Ted was accused of doing it because he was different.

  I always stuck up for him, saying “A book cannot be judged by its cover.” My adamant support probably had an influence on the local public’s understanding and tolerance of that “book cover,” but my perception changed as time passed.

  In the early years, Ted and I often talked about how lucky we were to have similar properties, lifestyles, locations, resources, and privacy. Both of us had land bordered by National Forest. No one lived above us. Clear, pure water sprang out of the ground and flowed through our properties. Each of us lived in a secluded gulch, where a variety of wild berries and game flourished.

  Even with all the similarities, there were many differences, because the country around Stemple can vary dramatically with changes in elevation and orientation of the land.

  Ted’s home cabin was located in an east-west drainage, Florence Gulch. Canyon Creek appears and disappears quickly. It flows to the west less than a half mile from the spring’s source to where it is absorbed into the ground at the mouth of the gulch, except during times of high water. The elevation at his cabin was 4,780 feet above sea level.

  But my home at the mouth of McClellan Gulch, which runs north and south, sits at an elevation of 4,940, nearly 200 feet higher. My unpolluted year-round water supply comes from many springs that flow from more than five different drainages before they converge at different junctures starting about one mile above the mouth of the gulch. From an elevation of 4,940 feet at its mouth, my gulch ascends to almost 6,800 feet at the top, nearly four miles south, with the highest point being 7,428-foot Fields Mountain on the southwest side.

  So despite the similarities, there are striking differences between our two gulches because of the contrast in elevation and the lay of the land. Both elements have a huge impact on variations of flora and fauna. The area north of Ted’s home cabin, with its southern exposure, is more arid and the trees are more widely spaced than in my gulch. The area to the south of Ted’s, a northern exposure, is more dense and moist and the predominant conifer species is Douglas-fir.

  In contrast, there’s no northern-southern exposure in my main gulch; even with five main drainages and additional smaller drainages, the predominant exposures of the mountains are east and west. The tree species are far more numerous and varied, plus there is a much wider range of plant species, including wild carrots, onions, and parsnips. The environment is more humid and the air temperature fluctuates more. These factors, together with the huge difference in roadless, trailless and uninhabited acres, mean my gulch has habitat for wildlife not normally seen around Ted’s home cabin, nor in most other areas around Lincoln. My wife and I have seen not only whitetail and mule deer, elk, black bears and grizzly bears, but also moose, mountain lions, lynxes, and bobcats. Rough, Franklin, and blue grouse abound. Bird species vary from rufous and calliope hummingbirds, which nest in the willows each spring, to western tanagers, water dippers, pine siskins, and numerous other birds, all the way up the size scale to great blue herons, and eagles.

  This greater variety of plant and animal species proved to be a great attraction to Ted at his secret cabin high up my gulch. The opportunity for him to cross-pollinate wild vegetables from my gulch—carrots, onions, and parsnips especially—with the domestic varieties he grew in his home garden was too exciting for him to ignore. He wrote in his journal pages about his goal of increasing the palatability of the hardy wild plants by crossing them with the more fragile, but much tastier domestic varieties. Such an improved plant would allow Ted to live in the woods indefinitely without suffering through a menu of only wild game.

  Back in the early 1980s, I was placer mining for gold in Poorman Creek about two miles from home. I had dug a discovery hole down through the gravel about fifteen feet to bedrock close to the water at a wide spot just north of the creek. I worked this spot during the summers for several years in my spare time with my father-in-law, Leonard Orr.

  Occasionally Ted rode by and watched us work. As usual, if I was alone he’d stop and visit. One afternoon as he pulled his bike to the edge of the road above me, I called up and asked him to climb down the road bank so he could watch and visit. He did. When he got down along the streambed he was very interested in what I was doing. I had moved my smallest dragline, a Northwest with a three-quarter-yard bucket, down to the site, along with a small trommel washer, a device used to separate gold from gravel through washing and tumbling.

  As I continued my work, we discussed the advantages and efficiencies of modern placer mining techniques versus the old hand-methods of the early prospectors. Ted obviously favored the old method over the new, but at the time I didn’t pick up on how serious his dislike of machinery was. I said I also favored slower hand methods if the more efficient modern methods weren’t employed properly. I went on to explain digging, washing, and reclamation techniques, and how they could be used with minimal impact to the land.

  The conversation shifted from mechanical mining to washing and extracting gold by hand with a gold pan. Not knowing whether Ted had a gold pan or not, I explained that placer mining and gold washing by hand didn’t require a gold pan per se. Any frying pan, especially one without a handle, would do. I proceeded to grab one of my gold pans, shovel some placer gravel into it and demonstrate how to pan gold.

  I trusted Ted unconditionally, so I pointed out a few likely spots and I wasn’t the least bit worried he would pass along sensitive information about how and where you could find “color” in the area.

  Ted didn’t appear to be overly excited about panning, but he definitely showed interest. Plus, I could never be sure what was going on in his head. I explained that with patience and a little luck, and by spending enough time in the right place, a person could acquire a surprising quantity of gold flakes.

  The old miners didn’t get it all, I said, and even with the hard work involved, a teaspoon, just a level teaspoonful, is approximately one ounce of gold. Even with gold prices down, that teaspoonful was worth close to $300, far more than Ted’s entire annual budget.

  Once again, I told Ted he was free to pan in any of my spots. I didn’t know if he would try it, even though it would be a perfect, private opportunity for him to acquire some money. Gold might not be legal tender these days as it was for the early miners, but no matter how small the amount, gold could easily be traded for currency at a variety of places—pawn shops, jewelry stores, coin stores—and gold could be sold anonymously, important to Ted, although I didn’t realize it at the time.

  FROM FBI INVENTORY

  MB 120N—One “Calumet Baking Powder” can with paper label secured with masking tape, with handwritten notations “Black sand presumably consist[ing] largely of Fe O4 or Fe O5 [
iron oxide].”

  MB 137—One small clear glass jar, with red-and-white checkered metal cap, containing two staples (for wood) and a small amount of gold, shiny granuals [sic] and flakes.

  MD49—One metal frying pan without handle.

  Many times over the years Ted was carrying books as I picked him up to give him a ride. I usually didn’t see the titles, because he carried them in his pack, with only the top corners visible under the flap, or wrapped in a sack. Early on I explained to him I had a huge library, thousands of books. I went on to explain that my collection was not a normal home library of novels and stories, but most of the titles dealt with science, history, mathematics, chemistry, botany, field identification. I had numerous “how to” books on topics ranging from making fishing nets to building a hydrogen generator. Ted knew where my books were kept and that he was welcome to borrow them at any time.

  In addition to my books, he had ready access to more than two decades worth of at least six science-related publications I subscribed to, some since high school. These magazines included Scientific American, Omni, Science, Mechanix Illustrated, Science Digest, and Popular Science. Most of the back issues are stored in boxes, in chronological order. When Betty and I married she wanted to throw them all away. I resisted because of all the good articles and projects in the magazines.

  I knew Ted had some of his own books, and I assumed most of the ones he carried were his own and didn’t come from the Lincoln Library. The library was reluctant to let Ted take out certain new books because they weren’t always returned in the same condition as when checked out.

  Ted had complete access to my library, before Betty retired in 1986. I see how many of my books would have been useful to him, books like The Charcoal Foundry, How to Build a Metal Working Shop from Scrap, The Blaster’s Handbook, Metallurgy, and Metal Casting.