BY DAVID GRANT LONG

A few lucky choices were all that led four deer hunters to the desiccated remains of suspected cop-killer Alan Pilon last fall, the hunters explained at an awards ceremony on Thursday.

It was the first year any of them had hunted in the Tin Cup Mesa area of Cross Canyon, recalled Kenneth Joe, a decision that was made only at 5 a.m. after hearing other hunters had done well there the previous day.

"Early that morning we decided which way to go," Joe said. "Someone said there were some big ones out there."

But initially, the gruesome find didn’t seem like a stroke of luck to Matthew Tortalita, one of a party of 11 hunters making their last sweep of Tin Cup Mesa just before dusk on the final day of the season.

Upon spotting a rifle lying on a rocky ledge, then seeing part of Pilon’s camouflage-clad body jutting from under a tree, Tortalita’s first reaction was to run, Joe recalled Thursday after Montezuma County Crimestoppers presented each of the hunters with a $1,138 check for their discovery.

"It shocked the hell out of my son-in-law — he was the one that saw it first," Joe said. "He didn’t want to go back."

Arnold Hatathle, another of the hunters who shared a $12,500 reward put up by local donors, was now able to chuckle at the grotesque Halloween Eve memory.

"[Matthew] hightailed it out of there," Hatathle said. "He saw some footprints and thought he was going to get it in the back.

"The first thing I said was I was taking my orange [vest] off."

Sue Claxton, Dale Claxton’s widow, spoke briefly at the award ceremony held Thursday afternoon at the Cortez Police Department and presented the hunters with a bouquet of yellow roses, "one of Dale’s favorite flowers."

"I’d like you to take them home in remembrance," she said. "You’ve helped me and my family to breathe easier in our time of loss."

Police Chief Roy Lane also thanked the hunters for "putting an end to another chapter of our lives."

"I hope before long we can put the third chapter [locating McVean] to bed," he added.

Although they all live near Blanding, Utah, some of the men had never hunted together before, Hatathle said.

"Usually I just hunt archery [season]," he said. "This was the first year I was going back to a rifle."

The men also split a $150,000 FBI reward in January for finding the remains.

Along with Jason McVean and Robert Mason of Durango, Pilon was charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder for killing Cortez Patrolman Dale Claxton with a hail of automatic-rifle fire in May 1998, and seriously wounding two Montezuma County Sheriff’s officers during the men’s getaway.

Immediately following Claxton’s shooting, more than 500 officers used high-tech military hardware to scour Cross Canyon and the surrounding countryside for any trace of the fugitives, all to no avail.

Mason killed himself near Bluff, Utah, four days later, according to police, after shooting at a social worker who was eating lunch along the San Juan River and wounding the sheriff’s deputy who responded, but the whereabouts of the other two had remained a mystery since.

Claxton had spotted the three men, who held strong anti-government views, traveling in a stolen water truck south of Cortez and was killed in his patrol car after the truck voluntarily pulled over and a passenger sneaked to the back and opened fire with a fully automatic weapon.

After stealing a second truck and wounding Deputy Jason Bishop and Detective Todd Martin as they fled, the men managed to elude pursuit through McElmo Canyon and were last seen near Hovenweep National Monument. The getaway truck was found partially concealed with tree branches later that day, but no concrete evidence of their whereabouts was ever uncovered until the hunters happened upon Pilon’s remains.

An autopsy concluded that he had died from what police also believe was a self-inflicted gunshot.

The trio’s motive for the theft of the truck and subsequent shooting spree remains a vexing puzzle, although it has sparked numerous theories.

Joe said he planned to use his share of the windfall to "pay our bills and get back on top — it’s a big help."