After he had bought the net, Matt mail ordered ten rolls of two-inch-wide military surplus camouflage material from The Gun Parts Company in West Hurley, NewYork. The company advertised them as “Cama Rolls.” Half of the rolls were forest green, and the others were brown. The burlap made perfect ghillie suit making material. The Keanes supplemented the green and brown strips with a few strips of tan burlap that they cut from potato sacks. Sewing the random length strips of burlap to the net poncho took countless hours.
With their evenings and weekends free, however, the ghillie construction work went quickly. They laboriously shredded the edges of each of the strips, to give them a frazzled, uneven appearance. After the poncho was done, Matt used more of the burlap to cover one of his boonie hats. The burlap hung down to his shoulders in the back. The full coverage ghillie effect was completed when a camouflage face veil was worn beneath the hat. When the entire ensemble was completed, he soaked it in Flamecheck FC-1055 fabric flame retardant.
Chase decided to make an even more elaborate ghillie. His was similar to those he had seen commercially made by Custom Concealment. He started with a set of Army surplus mechanics’ coveralls that was one size larger than he would normally wear. He did this because he had heard from a man at a gun show that the material in the overalls would gather together as each successive band of camouflaging material was sewn on. The man was right. By the time he was done sewing on twelve pounds of garnish, the overalls fit Chase nicely.
Since the ghillie material came down over the top of his boots, the effect of the suit was astounding. Even when standing up, Chase looked like a bush. When he tried on the full suit, hat, and face veil, he proclaimed:“Look at me, I’m the incredible shambling mound!” Before it went into storage in its duffel bag, his ghillie suit was also treated with Flamecheck flame retardant.
When they were done making the ghillie overalls and cape, the Keanes had a lot of shrimp net and burlap material left over. They eventually used most of it to make ghillie covers for each of their CFP-90 backpacks, and covers for each of their long guns. The backpack covers were attached with sewn-in rings of elastic material they bought from a fabric shop. The long gun covers were specially designed to not interfere with the operation of the gun’s actions. It took several tries to get them just right.
When the dollar started its dive and the riots began in the north, “Jason” and “Travis” gave two days’ notice at their jobs. They spent nearly all of their saved cash on canned foods. With the galloping inflation, their money didn’t buy much. At the end of his last day at the warehouse, Matt got another twenty-gallon drum of unleaded premium gas. His boss gave it to him in lieu of his last week’s paycheck. That evening, Chase dropped off the key to their rental trailer with the manager, and told him that they were moving out immediately. It didn’t take long to pack up the back of the pickup, drive to the storage space, load the other drums of gasoline, and hitch up the trailer. They were on the highway by 8 p.m. They drove in shifts to West Yellowstone, stopping only to refuel. They camped near West Yellowstone for one night. Then they did another marathon drive to Spokane. Most of their drive had been uneventful, but they arrived to find a city in flames. There were more than twenty fires burning out of control in the downtown Spokane area.
Except for the prolonged power failure, things were fairly normal in their parents’ neighborhood. There was no answer when they rang the doorbell, and the front door was locked. They got through the back door by reaching in the dog door to unlock the back door lock; a trick that Matt had used on the door for many years. It was clear that their parents, sister, and dogs had made a rapid departure. Coat hangers were scattered in their sister’s room. Some dog food was spilled on the garage floor. The pantry was empty. The hand tools and chain saws were gone. Most of the dishes, pans, cutlery, and clothes were missing. All of the camping gear, fishing equipment, archery gear, and guns were also gone. The family’s car, Suburban, and utility trailer were absent.
None of the furniture except a futon had been taken. After surveying the house, Matt and Chase met in the living room. Chase said, “It definitely doesn’t look like burglars did this—much too systematic. Looks like they just decided to take a philter. If I know Dad, he went up to the cabin.”
Matt and Chase left immediately for the Kaniksu National Forest, in Pend Oreille County. Their father had a cabin there on a deeded mining claim, fourteen miles east of Chewelah,Washington. As they wound their way up Flowery Trail Road, Chase wondered out loud, “Are they going to be up here, or over in Montana with Uncle Joe?”
When they arrived at the cabin there were shouts of joy, dogs barking, and a torrent of conversation. Everyone tried to talk simultaneously, both about the current situation and about where Matt and Chase had been for the previous four years. Their mother and father looked noticeably older. Eileen was by then twenty-one years old. One of the family’s dogs had been hit by a car during Matt and Chase’s long absence. It had been replaced by a pair of golden retrievers to keep their aging dachshund company. Their father said that the dogs were “city bred” and “worse than useless.” He complained, “They don’t watch for intruders worth a darn, and they bark at the game and scare it away.”
While their mother started a stew for dinner, the rest of the family spent some time going through Eileen’s “Fugitive Scrap Book.” It contained dozens of newspaper clippings, the “Radical Right Gone Wrong” article, fourteen letters to the editor that had run in the Spokesman newspaper, one of the Gun List reward ads, and a FBI wanted poster that Eileen had taken from the local post office.
One article that Chase found considerably alarming was a piece from USA Today that had a color picture of Chase’s motor home. The article had run the very same day that he had left the motor home in North Dakota. Another USA Today article that ran the following week described where the motor home was abandoned, and was titled, “Keanes in Canada? The Hunt Continues.”
As they leafed through the scrapbook, Eileen kept up a running monologue, describing the media hoopla, “You probably saw this one… and, of course, you saw the video….”
Matt answered, “No, we never saw the video of the shootout, just a still shot from it. We didn’t have a TV at the trailer.”
“You didn’t see it? You’ve got to be kidding! Nearly everyone in the country saw that video! It’s ironic that you two are in the tiny minority that didn’t see it. It was on the network news two days in a row, and on CNN about a bazillion times—you know how they keep repeating things. Mom taped it and sent a copy to Uncle Joe and Aunt Ruth. Then a while later it was on America’s Most Wanted. I saw it again last year. They put it in a PBS documentary on the militia movement.”
That evening over dinner, Eileen teased her brothers about their acquired southern accents. She said, “I’ll bet you spent all your time sipping mint juleps and taking those southern belles to cotillions.”
Mrs. Keane was beaming. She was happy to have the family together. Mr. Keane voiced his concerns to Matt just after dinner. He breathed, “You don’t know what kind of stress you boys have put your mother through, Matthew.From seeing that video and from what I read in the papers, I’d say you showed very poor judgment. You should’ve just let them arrest you, and argued it all in court.”