Unabomber

by Dave Shors

  When I mentioned the cabin, Cleary instantly perked up and asked me what kind of cabin.

  I replied it was an old miner’s cabin.

  He acted disappointed and put his head back down, returning to his handwritten notes.

  I wondered if this was the right time, but I still didn’t feel totally comfortable about how to bring up the secret cabin. I decided to wait because I knew they would be back and I had to get up there before anyone else.

  Besides, I felt if anyone deserved receiving the information, Dave Weber was the one. I was sure he had trusted me the previous summer and was disappointed when he got orders to be guarded about any communications with me.

  The conversation continued for a short while, centering on things I had discussed with Ted. As the three got up to leave I jokingly scolded Max for not taking the time to meet in person before making a character assessment.

  As they left Dave informed me he would return to get the letter, which I told him I could copy at home, and also to jot down information about my background.

  As I followed the trio out to their Ford Bronco I could sense Dave knew there was something I was holding back. They said their goodbyes and said they were headed to Butch’s house for a brief visit. I knew then Butch hadn’t spilled the beans.

  They said they were leaving town, so I was surprised to receive a call from Dave the next day, saying he wanted to come back up and double-check some of the details from our interview.

  It was Thursday, March 27. I decided Dave would not leave without knowing about the secret cabin.

  Dave arrived and I felt comfortable with him almost immediately. A Montana native who was named to the Unabom Task Force about two years earlier, Dave had a small-town easiness about him and was patient in building relationships. I also admired him for all the dirty work he had done the previous summer, spending hundreds of hours hiking in the rugged back-country looking for evidence.

  As we talked I knew he didn’t have an agenda or a long list of questions to go over. The conversation at times even slowed to the point of being awkward, but I had a strong feeling Butch had taken him aside and told him he better stop back and see me.

  After giving him a copy of the letter I had promised, I said, “I’ve got something to show you, something I think you will find very interesting.” I went to my office and returned with a photograph of the cabin in the snow taken the previous December and handed it to him.

  Dave grabbed the picture, studying it intensely, and the questions started to roll. He immediately asked if he could have the pictures and negatives.

  I could send him a set of pictures at a later date, I replied, but he couldn’t have these because they were the only copies.

  It was apparent from his excitement that this cabin was indeed what agents had been looking for in their long and tedious search of the mountains. He asked when and where I had found it.

  I answered the when question, but stopped short of describing where it was located, other than to vaguely describe a remote area, fairly high up. He mentioned a specific area of the gulch, wondering if it was there. I said not exactly, but kind of across from there, and left it at that.

  Dave sensed that was about all he would find out that day. He didn’t press me further, but instead promised to send me a detailed map, actually a high-altitude aerial photograph of the area, enlarged to help me pinpoint the location.

  “That’d be great,” I said, eager to receive the map even though I knew exactly where the cabin was located.

  I think Dave understood that as well, and he knew I was being careful and didn’t blame me. He then said the FBI hasn’t always had a glowing reputation in its dealings with people.

  As he was leaving we talked about what had happened the previous summer and why agents didn’t contact me after the CNN interview. Dave said he knew I could have helped greatly during the search and he had pushed hard to use me toward that end. But, as he put it, his words fell on deaf ears and he was ordered to keep silent and work only with the FBI team.

  Dave went on to say his wife, Sue, had been right about the location of Ted’s secret cabin. She had been with Dave and Jerry Burns that first time they stopped at my house. While Dave, Jerry, and I were talking in the yard, Sue sat in Jerry’s pickup, scanning the huge expanse of country behind us.

  Dave said that when he and Jerry got back into the truck, Sue said “if I were Ted, I would build my secret cabin up there,” pointing up my gulch. She went on to talk about the privacy, remoteness of the land and how close it was to Ted’s home cabin. Even to this day we occasionally laugh as she gloats about how her intuition was correct.

  As Dave got into his truck he said we’d be in touch and then he drove off toward Lincoln.

  I called Butch and said Dave had been told, but I hadn’t divulged the location.

  “Good,” Butch replied.

  I chuckled as he went on to say it was just like Columbo when they finally got the hint.

  That night I received a phone call from Max Noel thanking me for sharing the information with Dave. He wondered when I might send pictures and when they would be able to get up there with a team.

  Photos could be sent as soon as they were printed, I said, but it probably would be at least a month before the snow would melt sufficiently to hike up to the cabin.

  We then talked a little about trust and I complained again about his not taking the time to meet me earlier. He agreed, but partially blamed Butch for not steering them to me.

  I laughed as I told Max how Butch compared the whole scene to an episode of Columbo. Max didn’t find too much humor in the comment and replied Butch watched too much television.

  Max said he had to go, but would stay in touch. I replied I would take them up as soon as the conditions permitted.

  As we hung up, I could sense the adventure was just beginning.

  Secrets Revealed

  The secret cabin was the touchstone of my new relationship with the FBI. I had made a solid discovery, and then sharing that information with agents had shown I could be trusted and was sincere about helping.

  No longer would I have to wait for the chance to communicate with them. They would now be contacting me on a regular basis since I was the one with inside information.

  Max Noel had told me I would be needed to help with their investigation once the field team arrived back in Montana, since I knew the country and terrain so well.

  I told him I’d set aside the necessary time and I’d also monitor the snow conditions so we’d be able to hike to the secret cabin at the earliest opportunity.

  As the year moved into April there was still no hint of spring. The few days the sun appeared were quickly offset by frigid nights; the snow level just wouldn’t diminish.

  Finally on Wednesday afternoon, April 9, 1997, I decided to force the season and hike up the gulch. I wasn’t prepared for what I found.

  The elevation change between home and the old miner’s cabin just a mile beyond is only about 200 feet, but the snow around that cabin still was chest high, more snow than I’d seen there in a long time.

  I snapped a roll of pictures for future reference and to document where Ted had removed boards, material, and nails. It took thirty minutes to dig down through the five feet of snow in front of the door to get inside.

  I didn’t realize how important the trip and the pictures would prove to be. That would be the last time I’d see the old miner’s cabin standing.

  The very next trip up the gulch the cabin was down, squashed flat like a toppled house of cards. The heavy snows of about seventy years had finally taken their toll and the structure just couldn’t shoulder the weight of another winter. The missing piece of roof truss stolen by the joker, Ted, who had always been the odd card in the deck, had weakened the structure and contributed to the cabin’s demise; Ted used the 2X4 as the side rail and frame for his secret cabin bed.

  The leverage of the collapsing walls pulled up some of the cabin’s floor boards,
revealing where Ted had hidden a dry supply of split firewood. Also under the floor was a junkyard of old burned tin cans, all opened in his usual way with a survival knife.

  Ted had helped himself to plenty of building materials taken right off the shell of the cabin, including boards, plywood, nails, and tarpaper. All were packed up the mountain and used in the construction of his secret cabin.

  The old miner’s cabin, built by turn-of-the-century prospectors who scoured this gulch for riches, stood all those years and was a handy shelter and ready supply of materials for Ted. But the first winter after his arrest, weakened by his pillaging, it wouldn’t stand any longer.

  Ted had used whatever he needed from it, just as he had used people. It was like he had some special privilege to take whatever suited him with no regard for anything or anyone.

  His life during the Lincoln years was a dichotomy. He was a man of unyielding principles and was eager to kill for them, yet the rigid rules he devised for everyone else did not apply to himself. He was above the common man’s law.

  By the third week in April an amazing amount of snow remained in the high country. Everyone was worried it would melt quickly and severely flood Lincoln and areas down river. In some places even the twenty-foot-high snow poles used by the snowmobile club to mark trails were covered; several feet of snow had to be shoveled away to find the poles’ tops.

  That meant well over 240 inches of snow blanketed the mountains, the heaviest snowpack recorded for many years.

  But every day the sun moved higher in the sky, finally traveling a path above the mountain ridges, and then it started to penetrate the snowbound valleys and streambeds locked away and shaded by the vertical, tree-covered slopes towering above them. Some sheltered valleys hadn’t been warmed by a single ray of direct sunlight since the previous fall.

  Chinook winds added their life-giving heat as the icy fortress and small rivulets began to be transformed into rushing streams.

  On Friday, April 25, I told Betty I couldn’t stand any more suspense—it was time to return to the secret cabin.

  I laced up my waterproof, leather Chippewa hiking boots, grabbed a camera and fanny pack loaded with a few supplies, and started walking up the gulch, staying on bare or nearly bare patches of ground on the south-facing slopes as much as possible.

  It was a struggle to traverse the rougher terrain, which was still snowbound. But I avoided most of it by choosing a longer, less direct route and I arrived at the cabin in remarkable time, considering the conditions.

  As I stood there on the shelf in front of the cabin, it was more apparent than last November that Ted had chosen the location well. The only smell was the heavy scent of fresh-flowing sap invigorated by the warming weather. The only sounds came from the southwesterly winds brushing the treetops and the stream, far below, cascading over boulders and downed trees in its spring rush to Poorman Creek and then the Blackfoot River.

  This was a piece of paradise, unusually buffered from the harsh winter elements. Not only was it secluded, but also the sun, even when it was low in the south sky during mid-winter, would top the distant ridge and warm the shelf through the tree cover. The snow cover right here was already melted, an oasis in the middle of a huge snowfield. It was a perfect location for a year-round cabin, one of the few in the high country.

  The necessities of life—food, water, and fuel—were nearby. Any smoke from the small stove would be impossible to spot after it swirled above the treeline and mixed with the mountain breezes that swept up the small gulches and valleys. Any sign of a fire could be seen only from the mountain directly across the gulch, and that mountain slope is 70 degrees or more, heavily covered with brush and timber and very difficult to navigate.

  Ted was calculating in choosing his spot; it was perfect in every way. If I hadn’t been systematically looking for the secret cabin or something like it, it’s doubtful it ever would have been found.

  As I walked up to the cabin I had to shake off the same ominous feeling I had sensed before, both at Ted’s home cabin and at the secret cabin the previous fall. It felt like an evil place and that its owner was still hidden among the tall lodgepoles, watching me invade his private domain.

  Inside the small front opening I could see many curious items spread across the floor and piled under the bed, things you wouldn’t expect to find at a campsite or mountain cabin.

  Most out-of-place were several pairs of yellow latex-rubber gloves that immediately caught my eye. Some loose gloves were lying around, not only on the floor, but also near the stone hearth that supported the handmade stove. Others were still packaged in unopened clear plastic bags.

  Without touching anything I got down on my hands and knees at the doorway and carefully looked at one of the packages. From the price tag and label I could tell it came from a Skaggs Alpha Beta, a chain that has never had a Montana store under that exact name.

  There was a wide array of un–Ted-like clothing lying about on the dirt floor, probably pulled out from under the bed by small animals.

  I had never seen him wear any of these clothes—a bright-colored striped sweater, a tan polyester Henley shirt, and designer jeans. I figured they had to be disguises he wore to blend into the crowds when he traveled to the cities. All the clothes were in pretty good shape and it looked like the cabin had been used right up to the fall before his arrest.

  Many other items were still locked in stubborn mounds of ice and snow on the dirt floor.

  The tall dead lodgepole pine that had blown down across the cabin’s top the previous season had badly ripped a blue nylon tarp Ted had used to cover the roof and back wall. He had camouflaged the tarp with a layer of pine boughs, but they had blown off the roof and now lay strewn inside the cabin and around the outside.

  Once the wind penetrated the blue roof tarp the gusts ripped away much of the black tarpaper, plywood plies, small boards, and small poles Ted used to chink the spaces between the logs.

  The secret cabin was still intact, but without its builder close at hand to perform annual maintenance, it was in disrepair. Its condition surely would have irritated the proud builder who had penned many pages in his personal journals describing his creation and its interior fixtures, almost like a young father lovingly writing about his newborn infant.

  Ted’s journal entries not only described the construction of his cabin in detail and the amount of time spent on it, but also his original stove and the mistakes and problems he encountered building and then using it.

  He also wrote about the pristine and secret location he had chosen for his hidden mountain chalet. What would seem to be nothing more than a crude survival shanty to most people was a luxurious, private alpine condominium to Ted.

  I spent a little time hiking around the cabin, making mental notes about location, elevation, and other pertinent information. After taking a few more pictures, I placed my camera on a tripod and photographed myself standing next to the cabin so the FBI could see size and scale of the structure.

  Then I headed home, eager to tell Betty that she could make the hike if we followed the route I had taken. She would be excited and her next day’s schedule would be reorganized to include a trip to the cabin.

  I deviated from my course slightly on the way back just to see how much snow remained in the creek bottoms. Walking across long snow-fields, I carefully tested each step to avoid falling into any snow-covered small ravines. Even though the wind-packed snow often looks level, it becomes rotten in late spring and a person can easily break through the surface and become stuck in wet snow over his head.

  The forest floor in winter hides other potential dangers for the hiker. Fallen branches can cover a small chasm, ravine or old mining hole, become covered with drifting snow, freeze and look like the surrounding area. But as the melting ice loses its grip, such a hole can become a dangerous pit to trap either human or animal.

  As I reached the bottom of the mountain, deep drifts still covered the creek, but I could hear rushing wate
r undermining the last of winter’s icy embrace.

  When I arrived home, Betty asked: “How was it, did you make it up there?”

  I told her it was a piece of cake. She knew me too well. She was eager and committed to go the next day, but she knew the trip would be more difficult than I let on.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon talking about the cabin, what was inside, the trip up and how different everything looked this time of year. She was fascinated by my description of the cabin, the large chunks of snow-ice inside that still encapsulated many items, the clothing, and yellow latex gloves.

  I added a pencil and tablet to my pack and Betty put some apples and snacks in hers. We wouldn’t take any dogs because I was concerned about disturbing evidence and possible booby traps.

  We went to bed that night eager for the trek.

  The next morning, before we headed up the gulch, I called Bobby Didriksen so someone would know where we had gone. He was excited, too, and wanted a call as soon as we returned.

  I wanted to carefully check out several areas spotted on my first trip.

  Just outside the cabin door to the east Ted had dug a small firepit. It was still covered with patches of snow and ice, but some of his signature tin cans were starting to poke through the melting ice. Then on the west side, in a scrap pile, sheets of lead and pieces of angle iron were leaning up against the cabin.

  The ice chunks held mysterious items. Some were unidentifiable, but there appeared to be at least two different pill bottles, some wire, and a round piece of metal that looked like a compact disc. Extreme care would have to be taken not to touch anything, because at least two pieces of threaded pipe—possible bombs—lay under the bed near a pair of pants.

  The light blue denim jeans with beige pocket trim that had been hanging out through the back corner the first night I found the cabin had been pulled down by rodents once again, even though I had tightly rolled them up and placed them under the fallen tree on the roof.