In the Northeast of Oregon, there is an expanse of wilderness that seems to rise up quickly and starkly, coming from the West to the East, out of the dry and prosaic flatlands of the state center. Once you leave the stunning optics of the Columbia River gorge, you may think the mountains have come to an end. A cracked and brittle expanse with neither shrub nor tree in sight might be enough to turn you back toward the snow-capped volcanoes of the Western rainforests. If you keep pushing, past the dreary town of Pendleton and the foothills of the Umatilla National Forest, you will eventually come to a crowd of stunning, inviting peaks. The basalt-coated gorges, intertwined with intrusive granite and fissures of eroded canyon, are the gorgeous evidence of ancient magma movement, shaping the Wallowa-Whitman Wilderness and its surrounding mountains and valleys. It is a corner of strange, dramatic wilderness, intersecting the high alpine and glacial lakes of the Wallowas with the high desert and sagebrush landscape of the Hells Canyon wilderness to the East. The canyon drops drastically, and the Douglas firs are traded for sparse patches of Ponderosa pines. It was during the third week of a hitchhiking pilgrimage I made around the Pacific-Northwest, ending along the Bitterroot River, that I came upon the Wallowas and the vast wilderness beyond them. Within these ridges, I picked up the attention of perhaps the right people at most certainly the wrong time.
It was my third day since leaving the town of Joseph, the town situated at the base of the Wallowas along the Northern shore of Wallowa Lake. My time in the Hells Canyon Wilderness, a journey predominantly spent on old snowmobile trails that cut well away from the road, was supplemented by frequent streams and common shade to beat the mid-June heat. The moment came when my feet struck pavement again, and by then I was down to the last morsels of my jerky. It felt good to be back on the highway, though highway is a generous term, for the road I hit fresh out of the shadowy wood can be better described as an access road.
Standing on a thin shoulder several miles south of Salt Creek Summit, with a cool and narrow stream trickling nearby, I thumbed valiantly for the ride that would ideally carry me South, toward the Brownlee dam, on into Idaho. Particularly sunburnt and haggard, I hoped that my disheveled appearance would not deter the passing commuters from aiding me in my quest.
I wore an army-tan shirt and cargo shorts, both well beyond their wear. 17 days I had been on the road, and I was nearing the halfway point of my route. The dust and tumble of leather tramping was rewarding but particularly taxing in the Summer climate. I sought a good patch of shade, near a cold water source, and a couple of days’ respite to read and write, and nap. Idaho promised much in my mind, and I made the horrid mistake of assuming that my road to arrive there would be unperturbed by unknown, halting forces. I didn’t know it then, but it would be many days before I would cross at the Brownlee Dam.
Making triangles of gravel with my boots and sweating under the thinning shadows cast by the looming mountain hemlocks, I stood at attention with a poise of fronted exuberance each time a vehicle passed me by. North Pine Road is quite rural, and at times I waited up to an hour between cars. I played my harmonica, read from a series of Steinbeck essays, and washed in the nearby stream. On the fourth hour of standing, thumbing, and hoping, there was a clamorous mixture of squeaking brakes and barking dogs. A golden pickup with a contractor’s rack on the bed and a collapsible trailer in tow pulled to a halt in front of me. The driver was a man with a salty, peppered beard and a grin that was as much with his eyes as his mouth. In the passenger seat sat a woman, and both of them seemed to be in their late 50s. From the backseat protruded the snapping muzzles of four dogs, each one with a different coat, color, and voice. The driver apologetically exclaimed that he would love to give me a ride, but with a backseat full of protective hounds thought it unwise. I told them I understood and prepared for another few hours of waiting. It seemed that, as soon as they disappeared around the bend, they reappeared with a gladsome plan.
“Why, you don’t mind riding in the bed, do you?” The driver asked.
“Not at all, sir! In fact, it’d be a luxury cruise on a road and day like this.”
The couple introduced themselves as Nathan and Joanna. These folks were coming from their canyon homestead in Imnaha, headed to Oxbow for a weekend of leisurely fishing. They invited me to join them, and eagerly I accepted. They instructed me to get comfortable in the bed full of cargo, but not before loading me up with a handful of corn chips, a few chunks of dried beef, and an ice-cold beer straight from their cooler. In a minute, I was settled on some spare tires, facing the highway, which dissolved before me around every curve. I munched on the snacks and sipped on the beer, my spirits tremendously high. I was on my way to Oxbow, a collection of camps on the banks of the Snake River at the base of Hells Canyon, with well-humoured locals who graciously took me under their proverbial wing. What could go awry?
Well, nothing that was within my control. You see, an hour after Nathan and Joanna stopped on the North Pine Road, several officers arrived at the spot where I was last seen. I imagine the State Troopers observing with perplexity the strange geometric shapes I had left in the gravel where I stood. But they were too late. The hitchhiker they were searching out had long since been picked up. So they expanded their canvas area.
On May 30th, only several days after I began my journey from Seattle, a mother of three from Wenatchee, WA, named Whitney Decker, reported to the police that her daughters were missing. The last time she saw them, they were leaving on a scheduled visit with their father, a man named Travis Decker. He picked them up in his white pickup truck, and they brought the family dog. Three days later, on the 2nd of June, the bodies of the girls were found on the embankment of Icicle River Road, a remote access road near the Pacific Crest Trail, and their father was nowhere to be found. The oldest hadn’t even made her 10th birthday. His premeditation is almost without doubt. Travis Decker’s Google search history, only days prior to the murder of his babies, includes questions about how to effectively and secretly relocate to Canada. His custody of the three children was unequivocally revoked, his bridges burned, and his plan was seemingly underway. I won’t divulge in the horrific details of what Decker did to his offspring simply for forensic posterity; you can search his name up and read all about what this monstrous man has done. The blood of Travis and traces of non-human blood, presumed to be from the dog, were found in the cab of the truck. When the bodies of the children were found, the search was bumped up immediately. Air surveillance and ground teams covered several hundred square miles in a matter of days. They covered the sky, the rivers, and the far-reaching ranges of The Enchantments in Western Washington. Posters depicting a picture of Decker with the promise of a $20,000 cash reward for information were plastered in most gas station windows clear across the Pacific Northwest. They had his basic description: 5”8, 190 lbs, black hair. In my words, this man is of slightly below average height and of military build, indicative of his 8 years in the U.S. Army. With a dark mustache and a strong chin, I’d say he is likened to me if I were of Southern origin and if the viewer saw me from 80 yards off through fogged-over binoculars. It is said that this outlaw would be traveling light, in remote areas, and was last seen in a tan shirt and dark shorts. The nickname attributed to him by law enforcement was ‘the lone hiker’.
I couldn’t have picked a more merry crew to join. I rode with Joanna and Nathan to their campsite, and after hanging my hammock near where they erected their trailer, we all strolled the Western bank of the Snake River and took in the absolute glory of Hells Canyon. They were hosts of sheer hospitality and unmatched geniality. My prayer for a weekend of rest was met in full, and much of our time together was spent doing precisely what they had come to do: Wasting the hours away reclining in lawn chairs, reliving old stories, and casting for catfish ankle-deep along the sandy shore. Their dogs, Trip, Sophie, Meko, and Willow, were a cast of wildly different but complementary personalities. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them wrestle and tumble in the dust on the outskirts of our camp. All except Meko accepted me into the crew, and even Meko licked my hand before my time with them was through. I slept better that evening than I had since my time in an Astoria hotel. My hosts fed me at every point, encouraged me with exhortation, and kept me fully engaged and entertained with tales of hilarity. We dined at the Hells Canyon Inn that evening and ate morel and elk spaghetti the night after that, and in the mornings, we feasted on sausage and egg burritos fixed in a skillet.
It was during my second day with Nathan and Joanna that the Police finally found me. I was sitting across from my gracious hosts, chatting at a picnic table under the shade of the box elders from which my hammock hung. All was still in the stifling midday heat, the only sounds coming from the occasional rancher on the road or speedboat on the river and the constant, ambient thrum of the cicadas. A hearty game of cribbage was about to strike up when a Baker County squad car pulled in front of our camp, obscuring the mirage on the road with a plume of dust and sending all four of Nathan and Joanna’s hounds into a protective frenzy. Two officers emerged, and the dogs were the first to greet them. One officer, who later introduced himself as Matt, was in all the gear a State Trooper could carry in such heat. Sophie and Meko began nipping at the heels of Matt, and no matter Nathan’s scolding, the dogs kept bothering him. At the time, I thought Meko, a formidable Border Collie, was why Officer Matt kept his hand on the grip that jutted from his hip-holster. There were a few minutes of pleasant conversation between Joanna, her husband, and these cops, mostly to do with the weather, fishing, and a string of tattling on the previous campers who left a heap of trash in the firepit. Neither of the officers addressed me at first, though I kept my eyes on them, and suddenly, the officer named Matt, walked over to where I sat and introduced himself. I shook his hand and followed suit with what I hoped was a friendly demeanor.
“Ha! Matt. I should remember that easily enough,” he said.
“So, what are guys up to this afternoon?” I asked.
“Well, we’ve actually been looking high and low for you, Matthew.” This was said by the other officer, named Tim, who wore no gear save for a pair of slacks, a polo, and a pistol.
My mind immediately raced to a myriad of possible infractions, not one being the real cause for them searching me out. I thought about Oregon’s hitchhiking laws and vagrancy ordinances. Perhaps I wronged someone and moved along before realizing what damage I had done. To be perfectly honest, at that precise moment, I was wholly bewildered.
“Me? How can I help you?”
The two officers grinned at one another. It was a set of honest, well-to-do grins, not the sort of smiles that said “let’s cuff this kid.”
“Don’t worry, Matthew, you unfortunately look similar to someone else.” Tim said.
“Who?” I asked,
“Have you heard the name Travis Decker?”
What ensued was a bird’s eye view of Decker’s crimes, his flight, the local and federal response, and finally the series of callers who had mistakenly identified me as the killer of their heightened, overzealous imagination. As Tim and Matt explained, I fetched my passport and Alaskan driver’s license. Tim continued his synopsis of the previous 24 hours while Matt ran my ID to officially clear me of any criminal suspicion; T’s I was more than willing to help cross. Tim went on with his report of all the folks who had called me in, some of them being quite certain, likely at that moment reeling from needless adrenaline in anticipation of a grand sum of reward money. As it happened, the vigilant attitudes of the young waitress at the Hell Canyon Inn, a gas clerk at Scotty’s Convenience, and several well-intended commuters heading to and from the depths of America’s deepest canyon resulted in articulable suspicion and a full-blown manhunt. An APB went out on my description and the details of Nathan’s truck. The Staties and the Baker County Police searched the highways, campsites, and backroads of the region well into the night. They almost caught up to me 30 hours earlier, but in the time it took the nameless caller to arrive within cell coverage, my saviors had swung in and delivered me South. Several more reports the evening before provided dispatch with new information: That the suspect was seen with a middle-aged couple and a pack of boisterous dogs traveling in a golden pickup. A member of the Hells Canyon Inn Staff, apparently as soon as we walked out the door, called 911 to inform the authorities that she had just served a chicken sandwich to Travis Decker.
The tension had gone out of the camp completely, and despite the graveness of Decker still at large, we laughed as a group at the unique situation in which we found ourselves.
I pondered the disturbing parallels between this murderer and myself. We both left from the same corner of the country, only days apart. We both brandished dark shorts, light packs, sunned faces, and dark facial hair. His smile lines and squinted, smiling eyelids even resembled mine. In the wanted poster, he wore the same style of a wide-brimmed trucker hat that I wore.
“You know,” began Tim, “When I see you up close, you don’t look a lick like our guy. But from afar, well, your mustache is thick enough and your skin is just dark enough… and with that hat of yours? I don’t know, I could see it if I were passing at a highway speed. Might want to shave that mustache.”
Cleared of all suspicion, my record coming back decently clean, we said our goodbyes to the lawmen. I had a feeling of surreal gratitude, but I expect the officers were at least in part let down when their chance to catch the killer turned out to be an uneventful visit with a group of courteous campers.
Joanna, Nathan, and I laughed about it and rehashed the situation from our point of view, combined with the reported suspicions of people we had come face to face with the night before. When I thought about it, our waitress did seem a bit breathless and rushed, despite my hosts and me being one of the only tables there on the slow, muggy evening.
The next morning, we packed up camp, and I clambered back into the bed of Nathan’s truck. It was a wonderful stay, in a fine camp with even finer attendants who not only brought me back to full strength but sent me along with an abundant supply of protein and product. Nathan, when he saw that I had lost my baseball cap near the river, literally gave me the hat off his own head, in what seemed like a spontaneous but genuine show of provision. I treated them as a company of refuge in a time when I was regionally mistaken as a triple-homicide suspect. They backed me and were seemingly in my corner throughout the whole ordeal, though I credit them with enough sense to tell if the young man they picked up is either an aspiring writer with idealistic ambitions or an unrepentant murderer. We said our farewells at the intersection of Highway 39 and the Old Pine Road, from which I had come. The enthused couple and excitable dogs disappeared around the Northern bend, and I hoisted my pack to resume my journey West to the town of Halfway. There, I hoped to find cell service in order to check in with loved ones regarding the lunacy of what had taken place in Oxbow. Though the police had cleared me of suspicion, that memo did not, unfortunately, reach the ears of the community members. Over the next two days, I was either asked about or accused of being the killer from the North six different times. There was no doubt in my mind that it would be better for a community to take seriously the people-led response to such a crime than resort to regional apathy. Had I been him, there would have been a full measure of satisfaction after a chase that already felt weeks too long. Because I was not him, though, and the unmalicious intentions of all who reported me were wasted on some Alaskan writer, I am left to blame no one save for Decker himself.
I met a man in the town of Halfway who put me up in his home for two days. He and his companion prefer to remain unnamed. He was a friendly fellow and continually provided hospitality that went above and beyond what I would expect from a total stranger. As he was showing me his spacious bachelor pad, where I could sleep, where I would shower, how I should get in and out, we chatted about my travels. When I mentioned that I had been hitchhiking from Seattle, he quickly turned on me. I grimaced, knowing full well what was coming. He called his friend, a younger man, into the room with a voice that seemed a bit louder than mere caution. As he picked up a pair of nunchucks from a nearby table and his friend brandished a golf club, my new host asked with colorful language if I was that God-forsaken psycho-killer. They stood between me and the only door of the room. It took me two minutes of precise, careful negotiation and explanation before the two men finally lowered their blunt weapons. I showed them my ID, pulled up a picture of Decker, and reworked the whole debacle I had just undergone out in Oxbow. Two hours later, we were chatting in a lively way, like how old friends talk, forgetting all about the rocky start to our short but honest friendship.
That evening, he went to work at a local bar and left me at his apartment, encouraging me to shower and cook, and go about whatever I needed to do. When he walked out, I closed the door and stared at the deadbolt for a moment. I considered locking it, and decided not to.
The first order of business was to shave my mustache. My mom never did like it much anyway.
The Face of Travis Decker
The highways and the officers were poised to match the threat,
Their collective caution raised, their expectations met.
To pursue the three-kid killer, the Staties joined the force.
As they cruised and searched, both high and low, the land of cow and horse.
To this face they were drawn, beckoned by the call
of a half a dozen locals who had the strength and gall
to call me as the killer of their heightened harbored dreams,
while I thumbed in stride for each past ride by field, wood, and streams.
I was picked up by a couple who were hard-set for Oxbow,
the Oregon corner grove, the stretch of river, fish, and home-grow.
Like many other men, I’ve seen the source of fame,
but never knowed by darkened deeds a wanted, hunted name.
This man has killed his children and I somehow have his face.
To let such credible tips go by would be bureaucratic disgrace.
I have no hard-earned ledger, no manifest at hand,
to compare with this armed killer, whose bloodlust took command.
An angry storm was about to deluge, from the drivers who may mean well,
and in frontier justice, rash men would indulge; I would not see a cell.
He’s bound for Calgary avenues or the depths of the Olympic Penn.
So look for the monster-murderer in the alpine charred and spent.
The man is on the run, and my route is set on course,
so let me not perturb the flow of justice known by force.
And let me not be the one to stand in the direct way
of a definitive result to this freak act; a violent, evil fray.
There is no way to tell it without the stains of salt and blood,
the news of murder-mayhem spread from Pendleton to Mt. Hood.
And all across the Snake River lands, where the
lights in the homes are put on by the dams,
one pilgrim lay sleeping beneath a star-speckled sky,
As the posse of lawmen searched the night for their guy.
The waitress at the Inn saw my face and thought it so,
that the killer seen on Facebook had a hideout in Oxbow.
The gas clerk saw my mustache and had to do a double-take,
the wanted poster handy, he thought his instinct; his mistake.
Who doesn’t wish to withstand the wiles of evil, unchecked men?
Who doesn’t want to be the one to officially identify them?
So the reports came flying at the local station, and burned was the midnight oil,
of the two Oxbow cops, one armed to the teeth, whose Father’s Day would not be spoiled.
They found me sitting and sipping on the shady bank of the Snake River.
Justice is good when it’s local and true, where Feds could never deliver.
But I am not he,
and I don’t wish to flee,
and I will even flash you my Alaskan ID.
Hells Canyon is deeper than Grand, and vexed rangers scoured its depths,
for the face of a lad, in cargo shorts clad, sunburnt and seen on some steps.
A search is seldom in vain, for they know now I have no waning warrants,
so book me for vagrancy, something sublime, take me not for a crime so abhorrent.
As the officers cleared my name, absolved of malicious ambition,
the outlaw struck North amongst the big game, set on his evasive mission.
I am no running killer, and my home is merely the road,
In mountains and towns, thus wherever I’m found, is where I will call my abode.
And well pursued was the wanted man, in the land of sow and heifer,
The mad-mean man, across State lines he ran, the man named Travis Decker.
