Wanted poster, Peltier

Almost immediately after the confrontation, Peltier, Robideau, Butler and others among their group fled, Robideau and Butler to the south and Peltier to the northwest. He first traveled to Denver, where he bought an old Plymouth, and then on to Oregon where he and several associates, among them Dennis Banks and Anna Marie Aquash, an AIM activist who would later be found murdered execution-style, traveled in a recreational vehicle borrowed, it later turned out, from actor and activist Marlon Brando. The FBI, which had been tipped off to the actor's act of kindness, "provided descriptions of [Peltier's Plymouth and the actor's RV] to other law enforcement agencies," and on Sept. 9, "an Oregon state trooper stopped the RV," the FBI wrote. "Peltier got out of the RV, fired at the trooper and fled." According to the FBI report, "Agent Coler's handgun was found in a bag with Peltier's fingerprints on it under the front seat of the RV. Both of the vehicles were loaded with weapons and explosives some of the weapons had obliterated serial numbers."

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Peltier managed to escape that day. He slipped across the Canadian border to an Indian reservation near Hinton, Alberta, where he remained until the Royal Canadian Mounted Police finally arrested him.

Leonard Peltier arrested

By this time, however, federal investigators had little to tie Peltier directly to the slayings of the two agents. He had, without doubt, been present during the shootout. He even acknowledged, in later interviews, that he had fired his weapon as he made his way to check on some of the women and children caught in the crossfire during the confrontation. As Bachrach put it in a recent interview with Crimelibrary, "he acknowledges that he went to check and see if there were any women and kidsyou know, he would sort of shoot to get cover, drop down, shoot and run to cover himselfbut he doesn't acknowledge firing any of the killing shots."

Perhaps it was just a stroke of unusually good luck, though Peltier supporters contend that it was much more likely a case of the FBI creating its own miracles, but on Sept. 10, the day after Peltier escaped from the Oregon state trooper, a station wagon containing Robideau, Norman Charles and Michael Anderson blew up on the Kansas Turnpike just outside of Wichita. Authorities claimed that the three men, who were carrying weapons and explosives, injudiciously stashed them too close to the car's exhaust pipe, triggering the blast. The three men survived. But in the smoldering wreckage of the car, authorities found Coler's stolen rifle a .308 and a partially burned AR-15, which they later insisted was the same gun Peltier had used during the bloody battle at Jumping Bull.

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