by Waits, Chris
Ted shouldn't be surprised I w^as watching him. If our roles had been reversed and he had owned the gulch, he would have watched it and me like a hawk as well. But he must have been shocked and surprised to learn how much I knew about his secret places and trails.
I marvel to this day how^ Ted, the person who once said "Who's
Chris Waits?" could begin to convince anyone, even a total stranger, that he never knew me. Having heard a rumor that I might write a book, he wrote from his Colorado prison in 1998 to a television journalist in Denver, changing his story and admitting that he accepted a few rides from me and visited occasionally, but playing down everything else. It takes quite a leap of faith to believe that, considering he virtually lived in my back yard for more than twenty-five years and owned his home cabin nearly across the road from me in 1971 when only three other people besides Ted and me lived in the area. And he wrote extensively in his personal journals about the many places he loved and often frequented in my gulch, the gulch that he penned had "special magic" and "is a glorious place."
The more I learned and read from Ted's own pen in his journals only confirmed what I had suspected since he refused to see me at the jail in Helena. He wanted to distance himself and discredit me so authorities would not search and find the many secrets in my gulch.
I marveled even more when I read that when Ted arrived back in Lincoln after his long absence in 1978-79, after returning from Chicago and his early bombings, the first place he went for peace and solitude was my gulch. As his journal entries show he immediately reacquainted himself with areas in and near my gulch.
Tuesday, June 26, 1979
I started out before dawn this morning and am now at an old campsite of mine overlooking McClellan Creek. It feels very good to be in the wild country again. I especially value the silence here. (It is now so noisy around my cabin.) The only disruptive sounds this morning have been caused by the 9 evil jet planes that have passed within my hearing.
Wed. June 27, 1979
Am now camped at another of my old campsites in the McClellan Creek drainage, high up.
Tuesday, July 10, 1979
This morning moved to my camp on the other fork of
McC'lcllan. Took a walk up on hillside, then elimhed up throui^h beautiful parks of old Dou^^las firs. Shot a big blue iZirouse rooster. On the ridgetop enjoyed the magnificent ievs. The one good thing about this campsite is that it is especially well hidden from the eyes of man. It is also comparatively good picking for wild herbs, for this altitude.
SA'nRDAV,JiLVl4, 1979
Today I had the most wonderful morning I've had for a long time. At this beautiful dark, densely wooded spot, the Wisp began calling me, so I followed it to an oxen meadow. I slowly climbed to the top of the mountain through this strip of magic meadow. I gathered some mint along the way and felt as if it would bring me luck to drink tea from mint gathered in this enchanted landscape. (I didnt believe it, of course; it was just a feeling.) At the top of the mountain I looked down on the ridges below and contemplated the sight for some time. Then I climbed down through the Douglas Fir parks, over to the meadow strip again, and sat for awhile looking at the blue lupine and yellow flowers of some plant of the composite family, both of which dotted the meadow. Then I climbed back down to camp, looking at the plants. Only 2 jets passed, and those when my w^alk was nearly over, so that I was able to forget civilization and the threat it poses to these wonderful solitudes. Thus I was able to drink in the things that I saw with full appreciation. This gulch is a glorious place. It has special magic. I never get tired of seeing these fme old parks of Douglas firs around here.
As Max, Dave, and I embarked on the second day's journey, I described the places we would be exploring, starting in a side gulch that was one of Ted's favorite campsites. I had already given them a map showing the location.
We talked at a steady pace as w^e moved through the forest, talking about all the wild plants and all the pertinent information.
Max mentioned Ted's diet and how he was extremelv health con-
scious. He said that when Ted was first arrested and taken to Helena by agents, Max asked him if he was hungry and if he needed something to eat.
Ted surprised Max by replying he wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. His selection was unavailable on the jail menu, so he had to settle for grilled cheese, a sandwich he said he hadn't tried for years.
He ate the grilled cheese with gusto. Max said.
Dave started to talk about Ted's teaching career and said that his former students who had been interviewed said he was a poor teacher. They disliked him because he didn't explain things well and had no patience for slow students or ones who asked for extra, one-on-one, after-class assistance.
We were probably a mile and a half up the mountain when we saw a huge, very fresh pile of bear scat. I explained it probably was left by a grizzly bear while Dave knelt down, bent over to within several inches of it with his camera and snapped a picture. A scat pile was something they weren't used to seeing.
I chuckled and asked Dave what the FBI crime lab would think of a close-up picture of a wild forest beast's defecation.
They laughed, too, and Dave replied this wouldn't be the first bizarre picture sent to the lab for developing.
As we moved on after the photo shoot. Max explained how Ted had driven the FBI lab experts crazy with all his home-blended alloys. Metallurgists had an extremely difficult time breaking down the composition of the metals used in the devices.
At one point, technicians in the crime lab, with Ted's own blueprint at hand, decided they would recreate one of the devices. Using power tools, it took them more than twenty hours, while Ted had created the original device with crude hand tools.
Ted had taken the old tried-and-true term "handcrafted" to a new level.
Just down the trail a short way I showed Max and Dave a rock pointer, a triangular piece of granite, about ten inches long, six inches wide and five inches tall, that sat atop a natural stump at least four feet high and pointed off to the west. The top of the stump had been leveled by hand.
The arrow-shaped stone had been plaeed there for a signifieant reason, beeaiise roeks just don't tly, and Ted had been the only one in that area besides me. When we moxed on I said Fd eome baek later and check it out.
It could be something was buried nearby, Max said. Ted was a great belieer in the secrecy and safety afforded by a few feet of Mother Karth. Back at his home cabin FBI agents had literally uncovered a great many items, including ammunition under a corner post near his garden and other bullets near a large tree. Things were even found buried in his garden.
Max talked about the difficult time the FBI language translators had with Ted's Spanish, which was used in some journal entries as well as to label containers of chemical mixtures. They were so used to interpreting "street Spanish" that they had a difficult time deciphering led's.
FROM FBI INVENTORY OF ITEMS SEIZED AT KaCZYNSKI HOME CABIN
B-163—One metal can, with aluminum foil pressed over the top, w ith white paper label secured with masking tape, with handwritten notations. "Cuidado muy sensi-bilizado mezcla C de exp. 90 esta esta la misma que la mezela [sic] #5" [Chris Waits translation: "Be very careful of the sensitiveness of the mixture C of Exp #90 this, this what is the same mixture of #5"]
But why would he write anything in Spanish in his own journals.^ Even though he did correspond with Juan Sanchez Arreola, a friend introduced by David Kaczynski, in Spanish, his motive for using a foreign language as he wrote to himself within the pages of his journals was much different.
May 6, 1981
From now^ on I think I'll w rite my confessions on illegal hunting in Spanish because it'll be safer in case someone sees these notebooks by accident.
I was amused by this entry, knowing that the "someone" Ted referred to was probably me. And Ted didn't have a clue that this someone also knew Spanish.
The two agents and I eventually dropped off the game
trail we had been following, just down the mountain from one of Ted's old campsites. I pointed out the hard, red Douglas-fir stump where he had often cut kindling. We found many dead, dry poles, large limbs that had been hatcheted into small lengths and stumps, all signs of Ted's firewood gathering.
As we studied those jagged remains. Max brought up Ted's strange aversion to breaking glass. He wondered if I had known about it, witnessed it, or heard Ted talk about it.
I replied no to all three parts of the question, but said he must have made exceptions when he was really mad.
"What do you mean.'^" Max asked.
I told him about all the windows Ted had broken out of the small, tin-covered cabin located in my gulch during the late seventies.
Even though I didn't know at the time who had trashed the cabin, Dave had recently said Ted bragged in his own journal about being the culprit.
I said I had gone up the gulch right after the owner had found the cabin vandalized and had personally seen that every window had been shattered.
Max seemed surprised and looked over to Dave, who nodded in agreement, saying he had interviewed the owner of the cabin, who had told the same story.
Max said Ted must have been furious, because he had written often about his glass-breaking phobia.
UNDATED JOURNAL ENTRY
Somebody used to have an oldish house-trailer parked at an abandoned mine up Fields Gulch; it seemed to be used only in hunting season. In Summer '75 I broke into this trailer by unscrewing some screws and prying off a metal window-frame, ruining it in the process. (I had a strong psychological inhibition against breaking the window, even though it's very unlikely anyone could have
been within earshot.) I stole a few cans of food from the trailer.... (Next summer I noticed the trailer had been remoed.)
UNDATED JOURNAL ENTRY
Spring 77 I went back to this same cabin [mentioned in an entry not cjuoted here]. There was a diesel earth-mo'ing machine parked near it, and I sugared the fuel tank. Then I unscrewed a window from its frame (still that inhibition about breaking windows), entered the cabin, stole a trail axe, slashed the mattresses of 6 beds they had there, slashed a sofa, and poured out a 1/3-full bottle of x'odka.
We continued the climb to Ted's hunting camp.
Max kept saying, "We've come so far," but I assured him the distance we had hiked that day was nothing more than a little nature walk for Ted. The country w^as huge and uninhabited; walks of several miles or more were mere jaunts.
Max thought we had gone too far, saying Ted wouldn't camp so high up the mountain.
Just the opposite, I replied, saying we still had a way to go.
Max had a difficult time grasping a sense of scale in the mountains, even though he carried one of Ted's hand-drawn maps that traced all the trails he had hiked over the years.
Seeing them on a map was one thing; following them on foot in the rugged terrain was quite another.
As my father-in-law had often said, "A mile is a long way in the w^oods." I always agreed with him, know ing how true it was: the climbing, stepping over fallen logs, walking through slippery mud and rocks.
We topped the last incline and reached Ted's hunting camp, one he had used often and had written about extensively.
Many bleached animal bones and pieces of firewood with the telltale chop marks from Ted's ax were strewn about the area near the well-disguised firepit w here he had cooked meals.
Dave thought perhaps the bones were from a winter kill or left over from a predatorv' attack, but those theories were quickly dispelled
when they saw the distinct knife marks left as Ted stripped meat away from the bones with his hunting knife.
Dave thought it was interesting how Ted's personality had changed since his arrest. While this had been his special place for many years, he had adapted to prison life well and was now in "heaven" playing the part of a jailhouse lawyer.
On top of it all—ordering every law book he could find to prepare his defense and making his lawyers follow his lead—he now required everyone to address him as Doctor Kaczynski.
Dave painted quite a graphic picture as he described the Doctor, with his head high, smiling and obviously in control, while a clique of "groupies" followed his every move.
I said the gullibility of people mystified me; it's amazing how quickly a criminal is transformed into an icon, to be almost worshipped. It's a given that criminals have rights, but what about the victims and their rights.^ Somehow I feel our nation's sense of values has become skewed.
The agents both agreed, especially considering the many lives Ted shattered and destroyed.
What bothered me above any other thing then, and still bothers me now, is Ted's total lack of remorse.
Max and Dave went on to tell me how Ted had written in his journals about some of the laws of men and how good they were for everybody else, but they didn't apply to him.
While we were examining the bones lying around the campsite, I told them about the rabbit skull I had found at the secret cabin with a small caliber hole through it.
The conversation then shifted to our dogs that were brutally killed. They both shook their heads as I described the gruesome details of how our malamute, Tasha, had been shot by a .22 caliber in the rectal area and had bled to death internally. She was no doubt killed by Ted, using his .22 pistol or his homemade .22 zip gun.
Max said the zip gun was fairly sophisticated for a weapon that was made entirely by hand, but it was crude at best when compared to some of the machined but home-built guns commonly confiscated when the agents arrested street criminals.
Since they can't be traced, home-built street weapons are made almost exclusively to commit crimes. Ted's was no exception.
rNiivrKn joirnal kn try
A few days a^o I finished niakin^z; a t\ enty-two caliber pistol. This took me a lon^ time, for a year and a half, thereby pre entin
My days in the woods with the agents weren't without incident. Max soon discovered I was just as stubborn as he, and we argued more than once about things as simple as logistics and which end of a fallen log was the butt.
Every "discussion" ended with a laugh, though, and I knew both Dave and Max w^ere having a good time, in spite of the seriousness of the whole matter. Our arguing was little more than stress relief There was plenty of stress, considering all the loose ends and the trial looming just months away.
I could understand the tension felt by the whole prosecution team. Just sorting through approximately 22,000 pages of documents written by Ted and found in his home cabin would be daunting enough. Add to that all the physical and lab evidence documenting the past eighteen years and the task grew to epic proportions.
We finished scouting around Ted's old camp and decided to move down and around the ridge to another area matching a description Max had given me from Ted's notes.
As w^e climbed up and around one of the main forks of the creek, we neared the small cabin covered with sheet metal that Ted had
bragged about trashing. His journal entries described how he broke out all the windows, stole things from inside and vandalized the small bulldozer parked nearby. He also stole the magneto from the Cat and buried it, although he didn't describe where, so it was never found.
Dave and Max looked i
n awe at the sorry remains of the cabin Ted had vandalized nearly twenty years before. The ruins were a stark reminder of the severity of Ted's rage when it was leveled on members of the industrial-technological society who irritated him.
The more I visited with Dave and Max, the more we were able to resolve many of the Lincoln mysteries that had puzzled area residents during the past twenty-five years. The solutions were simple as they poured out of journals, where Ted bragged about most of the acts of destruction.
Kaczynski crime journal [a separate notebook for
"bragging" ABOl T HIS CRIMES; SEE DESCRIPTION BELOW]
There is a small, functioning mine—I'll call it Mine X for future reference—a few miles from my cabin, on the south side of the ridge that runs east from here. They had a large diesel engine mounted on the back of an old truck, apparently for running a large drill for boring holes in rock. In Summer '75 I put a small quantity of sugar in the fuel tank of the diesel engine and also in the gas tank of the truck. Sugar in the gas is supposed to severely damage an engine because it gets into the cylinders and acts as an abrasive. But I don't know if this works in diesels (maybe sugar is soluble in gasoline but not in diesel fuel—or something).
...Summer '76 I went back to Mine X and put a generous quantity of sugar in the fuel-tank of the diesel engine and the gas-tank of the truck.
...Still in Summer '75, I went to the camp—apparently it is an outfitter's camp—along the [name] trail east of the [name] drainage. They have a corral there, and, a little way back in the woods, a kind of lean-to with equipment stored in it. I stole an axe (this is the axe I still use), poked holes in several 5-gallon plastic water-containers, took the
stoNcpipc and hid it off in the woods, smashed 2 thermometers, and seattered most of the other stuff around.