by Dave Shors
Leaving the site one day after work, the crew felt all the equipment was secure behind a locked Forest Service gate, ready to go when they returned.
Since it was the end of August, fire season was in full swing, with fire lookouts constantly scanning the forests for any early sign of trouble.
When a call came in that smoke was sighted near the timber sale area, a fire crew was immediately dispatched. A short time later they pulled their fire trucks into the area and found the log loader had been set on fire, and that flames then spread to one of the rubber-tired skidders, leaving charred smoking hulks of steel. Flames also had spread to nearby trees and several acres were burned. Fire fighters were able to extinguish the blaze quickly before it built into a dangerous forest fire.
Investigators determined damage to the machinery alone was $75,000. The stakes were escalating. Whoever was responsible had turned from vandalism to total destruction of local cabins and expensive equipment.
How could this criminal be caught with no one knowing where or when he would strike next? He was clever; no clues were left behind.
In late May 1985, a little thing happened that meant nothing at the time but would take on great significance a dozen years later, when I learned of Ted’s travels as the Unabomber. I drove my 1975 light blue Blazer out of my shop after overhauling its automatic transmission. The vehicle was new to me. I had purchased it in Butte, making a good deal because of the transmission problems. It would be a fine vehicle for my wife to drive during the winter, since she was still working at the time and usually left home before the snowplows got out to clear the road.
After locking my shop doors, I headed for home, eager to let Betty try out the vehicle. I crossed the Stemple Bridge over the Blackfoot River, passed the square concrete-block sheriff’s office just outside of Lincoln, and headed south along the gravel road. About a quarter of a mile ahead I spotted someone holding his thumb out, walking backward and trying to hitchhike. As I got closer it looked like Ted. I was taken aback as I had never seen him hitchhike, before or since.
August 25, 1982: Incinerated rubber-tired log skidder.
In addition to destroying logging equipment, the vandal nearly caused a major forest fire.
The log loader was a total loss.
He had no way of knowing I was driving the Blazer, since neither he nor anyone else in Lincoln had yet seen it. I pulled up alongside and he promptly hopped in, appearing relieved it was me and not some stranger.
I knew he had just arrived in Lincoln from town, probably Missoula, because of his dress and the time of day. He was wearing his “going to town clothes,” a little nicer than his everyday garb, and he carried his small nylon travel pack, not the larger green canvas army pack he always carried while hiking around Lincoln. Also, it was just a few minutes after the bus arrives daily from Missoula, a little after 3:15 P.M.
Ted barely acknowledged what I was saying, even with me talking non-stop about my new vehicle. He seemed even deeper in thought than usual, anxious and nervous, and he was in a hurry. As I pulled up to his mailbox where I often dropped him off, he barely uttered his usual thanks or good-bye as he promptly got out, and immediately headed toward his cabin. Even though it puzzled me at the time, I passed it off, eager to get to home to present the Blazer to Betty.
In the fall of 1986 I started to spend all my spare time cutting lumber at my sawmill so I could expand our home. I was building an atrium where I could install a large spa, raise exotic birds and grow tropical plants. One day after milling lumber all morning I walked toward the house to get something for lunch, leaving my pickup over by the sawmill, where it was invisible from Stemple Road.
As I approached the door I heard Ted coming up the road, his bike chain squeaking as usual, the pace quickening as he neared my driveway. Betty was at work and with my pickup out of sight, it appeared nobody was home.
All at once our dogs, which were loose and lying on the lawn, ran out toward Ted barking wildly. The sight, sound or smell of him still drove the dogs mad. What happened next stunned me.
Ted let fly with a string of extreme profanities that floored me. I had never even heard him cuss before.
Was Ted so controlled he could display total calm on the outside while he was seething with anger inside? I was learning new things about my friend. Looking back, even when considering such odd behavior, there was nothing concrete so I remained in a state of denial, refusing to consider him guilty of anything.
After that incident, though, I knew Ted had a great deal of hidden anger. What I didn’t know was how he had handled it and would in the future. How well did I really know Ted? I talked to Betty about the incident and I was surprised to find out she had heard the same vicious profanities several times.
When I asked why she hadn’t told me, she replied, “Why? I don’t know Ted and whether it’s out of character for him or not.” I saw her point. Ted never waved to her or took a ride with me when she was present, so why would she recognize his “usual” behavior?
Early in the fall of 1986, my wife came home from her job permanently. She was having great difficulty with her back, lifting sixty-pound tubs of meat all day long on a cement floor at the High Country Beef Jerky plant, where she had been employed for more than seven years.
Her constant presence at home would change things in the gulch for Ted, giving him less privacy around the access area near Stemple Road. I continued to use every spare moment away from my logging activities to work on my new building addition, finishing the roof, and buttoning things up for winter.
The first heavy winter storms came relatively late even though there were periods of -30° temperatures and some light snowfall during January.
One cold, -20° morning Betty took the dogs for their daily walk. I remained home from the logging job to do some paperwork. I knew the job site, 1,500 feet higher in elevation, would be at least 10° colder, too frigid even to start the machines, so I called the crew and told them to stay home. It was the end of February 1987.
Before I ever got a good start on my work, Betty unexpectedly returned home, very startled, and said Ted was up the gulch about a mile, camping at the old miner’s cabin. The dogs smelled him first, barked and ran at him. It frightened her. She held the dogs as well as she could while Ted talked to her, asking what day it was, what time it was, and how cold it was, his usual line of questions when he had been out for a while. He then told her he had been hiking on the ridge above, got caught in a storm, looked down into the gulch and spotted the cabin. He moved down off the ridge into the bottom of the gulch and took shelter in the cabin, spending the night. He had a campfire burning right outside the cabin door.
Betty and I were amazed. It was the first time Ted had ever spoken to her. He obviously had been caught in a compromising position. Even though Ted knew he was always welcome in the gulch, he had reacted strangely. I really began to wonder what he was doing up there in such cold weather.
But it wasn’t even the weather that made me the most suspicious. It was what he had said to her that alarmed me. He had lied. You can’t see the cabin from the ridge. In fact, it can’t be seen until you get within a hundred yards of it. And he had known for years the cabin was there; he’d hiked by it hundreds of times.
Troubled, I decided to hike up the gulch and talk to Ted. I promptly left the house, but by the time I got to the cabin Ted was gone. He had doused his fire with snow and left, following his usual trail along the other side of the gulch. I followed his tracks until they crossed Stemple Road. He had been walking down as I was going up. He must have seen me.
Still not satisfied I decided to trace his trail back up the mountain and find which ridge above the cabin he had come down. Returning to the cabin, I then followed his tracks upward through the trees. It was like he was returning from somewhere and he had been working his way back to his home cabin.
I knew he wasn’t out hunting. Betty had said he wasn’t dressed warm enough for the cold weather. Also, he hadn’t
cooked any meat on his campfire, only canned food.
I continued backtracking his trail for more than three quarters of a mile, then the wind started to kick up and snow drifted into his tracks. I could have picked my way farther but it would be a lot of work and I wasn’t really dressed for a long trek through cold snow. I dismissed the encounter, turned and headed back. I decided to ask Ted about it the next time I saw him, but I wondered if I would get a straight answer.
Little did I know how close I had come to finding his secret cabin that day; I had followed his tracks to within a quarter of a mile of its location on the mountainside before I turned back.
Just as other strange events had entered and then left my mind, this one was destined to follow the same path. No single event by itself meant too much. I still did not connect Ted to anything related to crime.
The spring of 1987 arrived; late snows and early rains kept the roads muddy, halting my logging work.
One afternoon while Betty and I were returning over Stemple Pass from a Helena shopping trip, we came upon Ted across from my logging operation at Windy Point, his bike parked at a wide spot on the road. We were surprised he had ridden all the way up there in the mud; he was about ten miles from home.
He was sitting on a grassy knob not far from his bicycle—the same spot where he had sat many times before—looking across to my logging units. I pulled over to visit with him. He was friendly, but seemed preoccupied. I mentioned he was a long way from home in very difficult riding conditions with the mud in places extremely soft and slippery. He agreed, but didn’t elaborate.
The conversation didn’t last long. After commenting to Ted about the beautiful day and that maybe spring was here to stay, we headed for home to put the groceries away.
I remarked to Betty that if Ted was just out for an early spring ride, why didn’t he head west where it was lower and drier instead of up around my logging operation? I wondered why he was still so interested in that site after I’d worked there for two years already.
Summer arrived and with the addition of several more contracts my logging and road construction company was expanding and spreading out. This meant more employees, more responsibility and less time away from work.
I cherished my free time and I hiked as much as possible, by myself or with my wife, when I wasn’t working on equipment. The leisure trips were mostly in and around my gulch, but I’d also hike into some of my favorite old mines in other gulches near home.
During that summer and fall, a placer mining operation opened in Sauerkraut Gulch, just a few miles west of Ted’s place. I was hired to clear trees around the portion of creek to be mined. I didn’t think of it at the time, but this mine meant that each direction but one from Ted’s home cabin now was the site of major logging or mining work. North, east, and west were no longer untouched wilderness. But to the south, McClellan Gulch still was.
Fall came, and along with it a curious pre–hunting-season invasion. It seems, at least to Lincoln people, National Guard helicopter pilots out of Helena log a lot of training exercises and flying time at the start of hunting season. The helicopters create a great deal of noise while flying low over the mountains, with the valleys acting as echo chambers, amplifying the “whop, whop, whop” of the rotors.
That fall was no exception. The helicopter activity seemed to increase with the late-October opening of deer and elk season. Locals knew the pilots weren’t out just to spot game because it’s illegal in Montana to fly and hunt on the same day, but it made for good conversation over morning coffee at Lambkin’s. Even if the guardsmen were trying to take advantage of their time in the air, the extreme noise would surely scatter the game.
The noise was apparently seriously irritating a person around Lincoln. Rumors again circulated about somebody randomly shooting at the helicopters overhead. Was it true? I wasn’t sure at the time. Others swore the guilty party was out there and remained at large.
As the 1980s wound down, acts of vandalism and occasional cabin break-ins continued. Some cabins were hit and nothing of value was taken; these acts of destruction seemed to be related more to the noise level of the recreational forest activities of the people who used the cabins.
Another Forest Service contract was in the works, but to the southwest of us. I didn’t bid on the sale because I had my hands full with three or four other contracts. Loggers from outside Lincoln were awarded the job. After they started up I heard their equipment was hit; skidding cables were cut and dirt was put into their machines’ oil and diesel fuel. Luckily, one crew member noticed a machine had been tampered with, so all were checked quickly.
It’s a time-consuming and costly job to repair cut cables, drain and clean oil and fuel systems, and replace all filters, but not nearly as expensive as major repairs or the downtime that follows.
The criminal acts were so scattered, times varied and methods were diverse enough that it seemed there had to be different people involved. But were there? Could one very crafty individual be responsible? Nobody ever listed all the events together and compared them for time, frequency, severity, and most of all motive.
The Stemple area is just one that has grown in recent years as a popular seasonal recreation spot. Rochester Gulch, just a few miles from my house, runs north and south just off the Stemple Pass Road. Straight south across the road is Prickly Gulch, also a north-south gulch.
Both are popular spots for cabins, mostly older and scattered, but there are a few newer ones as well, and some trailers and trailer spots where people park their rigs for the summer. There are probably a dozen or so places in Prickly Gulch and half that many in Rochester, nearly all close to Stemple Road. Nobody lives in any of these cabins year-round, but at times during the summer the area is very active as people enjoy outdoor activities. Some of them stay around until the winter snows fall.
These summer dwellings had become frequent targets for break-ins and vandalism because of the number of buildings and scarcity of people.
The last cabin to be hit was also the biggest and newest cabin in Prickly Gulch. One summer in the early ‘90s the people had a small gold-panning operation north of their cabin. They returned home after a time in the woods to find someone had destroyed the set-up. Things were missing, tools and equipment smashed, shovel, pick and ax handles broken, and the most remarkable of all, a large pick head was broken. Someone had pounded and beat on the head until it literally broke in two. As they searched the area trying to find clues, they discovered some of the missing items partially buried or hidden under old logs. Hatchets were broken or thrown away, but not until they had been used to destroy a wheelbarrow and other mining-related equipment. If all that wasn’t enough, they went on to find that their cabin, too, hadn’t escaped the vandal’s wrath.
The method and potential motive were becoming clearer. Somewhere out there, an extremely angry person was set off, apparently by their mining activities.
About this same time, I started to think in earnest about not only all the destructive and potentially lethal activities, but also how drastically the country, especially the area around Ted and me, had changed.
Nearly a dozen new places had been built near Ted’s cabin where only two or three existed when he arrived in Lincoln. Likewise, near me, almost twenty dwellings now exist where only four had stood prior to 1971.
Additional cabins mean more people, more dogs and pets, more motorcycles, snowmobiles, and four-wheelers, more cars, trucks, and machines of all types, and most of all, more noise. A flurry of Forest Service logging jobs during the ‘80s brought in more heavy equipment and workers. Cloistered privacy was a thing of the past.
Even though Ted had always spent most of his time out in the surrounding mountains, his time away from his home cabin increased as the years went by. He spent more and more of his time up my gulch, sometimes not coming down for days or even weeks.
I knew Ted had camping spots up McClellan, and I found a few I was certain were his. He had others outside McCle
llan that he also used in the earlier years. In about 1980, for example, while hiking a few miles northwest of the South Fork of Poorman Road, I came upon a small lean-to. It was in a thicket that consisted predominantly of wind-thrown lodgepole pine trees. The lean-to was constructed from a fallen pole with an olive drab green plastic rain poncho draped over it. Evidence of past fires could be seen near the front. The shelter was barely visible, and I found it by accident. The green plastic rain poncho looked familiar. But the camp looked like it had been deserted after some use; it probably wasn’t nearly remote enough for Ted. Even though it wasn’t far from Rochester Gulch, another of Ted’s favorites, I believe he abandoned this camp because it was far too accessible by the hunter traffic that increased every fall.
Another spot Ted had used for shelter when caught out in a storm or late at night was a cave high at the head of Fields Gulch.
In the early ‘70s, while out hunting elk in that area, I had crossed mountain lion tracks of a mother and two kittens in the snow. I followed the tracks until they entered one of several natural caves in the area. I left the animals alone, and on the way down found another cave. It was a nice spot and would be a good location to take shelter during a blizzard.
Years passed and, while hiking again close to the area, heading for the top of the ridge to walk a portion of the old pack trail, I neared that second cave. Curious, I entered it and found some candles and canned food stashed inside.
Later that year a friend of mine discovered the cave and described what was inside. I had never told anyone it was there.
Even though the spot was remote I knew it was only a matter of time before word about the nice shelter would get around and it would be used by others.