June 25th, 1828
So long as this country is cursed with slavery, so too will it be cursed with vampires.
PART II
VAMPIRE HUNTER
FIVE
New Salem
The way for a young man to rise, is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that any body wishes to hinder him.
—Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to William Herndon
July 10th, 1848
I
Abe was shaking.
It was a bitter cold February night, and he’d been waiting for a man to put his clothes on for the better part of two hours. Abe paced back and forth… back and forth in the hard-packed snow, throwing the occasional glance toward the unfinished courthouse on the other side of the square, and at the second floor of the saloon across the street—where a light still burned behind the curtained window of a whore. He passed the time with thoughts of his weeks spent floating shirtless down the Mississippi in unbearable heat. “Heat a man could drown in.” He thought of mornings spent splitting rails in the shade; afternoons cooling off with a swim in the creek. But those memories were all more than three years and two hundred miles away. Tonight, on his twenty-second birthday, he was freezing on the empty streets of Calhoun, Illinois. *
Thomas Lincoln had finally given up on Indiana. He’d been receiving regular reports from John Hanks, a cousin of Abe’s mother, regarding the untapped wonders of Illinois.
John wrote of the “plentiful and fertile” prairies of that state. Of “flat land that needed no clearing. Free of rocks, and to be had cheap.” It was all the incentive Thomas needed to leave Indiana and its bitter memories behind.
In March of 1830, the Lincolns packed their belongings into three wagons, each hitched to a team of oxen, and left Little Pigeon Creek forever. For fifteen exhausting days they navigated mud-covered roads and forded icy rivers, “until at last we reached Macon County and settled just west of Decatur,” smack-dab in the center of Illinois. Abe was twenty-one then. It’d been two years since he’d witnessed the slave massacre in New Orleans. Two years of handing hard-earned wages over to his father. Now he was finally free to strike out on his own. Despite being desperate to do so, Abe stayed on an extra year, helping his father build a new cabin and helping his family settle into their new home.
But tonight he was twenty-two. And so help him, it was to be his last birthday under his father’s roof.
[My stepbrother] John was the one who insisted we ride to Calhoun to celebrate. I wouldn’t hear of it at first, not being one to make a fuss over the occasion. As usual, he nagged at me until I could tolerate no more. He stated his intentions while on our ride to town, which as I recall was amounting to “getting blind stinking drunk and buying you the company of a woman friend.” He knew of a saloon on Sixth Street. I do not recall the name, or whether it had one at all. I remember only that it had a second floor where a man could indulge himself for a price. John’s intentions nonwithstanding [sic], I can say that my conscience remains clear in this regard.
Lincoln may have resisted the temptations of the saloon’s perfumed ladies, but he drank its whiskey freely. He and John shared laughs at the expense of their father; their sisters; at each other. It was all “very good for the soul, and a very good way to spend one’s birthday.” Once again, John’s nagging had paid off. Near the end of the evening, however, while his stepbrother flirted with a voluptuous brunette by the name of Missy (“like the Mississippi, honey, but twice as deep, and a helluva lot warmer”), Abe saw an average-size man walk in, wearing clothes “hardly fit for a night so cold.”
His face bore none of the redness I had observed on the other customers as they hurried into the light and warmth of the saloon—nor had his breath been visible against the cold air as he entered. He was a pale gentleman of thirty years or less, but his hair was nonetheless a curled mix of brown and gray, the result being something like the color of weathered planks. He made straight for the barkeep (it was clear the two were acquainted) and whispered something to him, upon which the aproned little man hurried up the staircase. He was a vampire. He had to be—whiskey be damned. But how to know with certainty?
Abe was suddenly struck by an idea.
I barely spoke above a whisper. “Do you see that man at the bar?” I asked John, who had been occupied with the lady’s ear. “Tell me, can you ever recall seeing a man with such a repulsive face?” John—who had not the slightest idea what the man’s face looked like—laughed heartily all the same (such was his state). Upon my whispering this, the pale gentleman spun around and glared directly at me. I smiled back and lifted my glass to him. No other creature would have heard the insult over such a din, or across such a distance! There could be no doubt! Yet I could not take him. Not here. Not with so many people watching. I smiled at the thought of being dragged away and charged with murder. What would be my defense? That my victim had been a vampire? What’s more, my coat and weapons remained outside in my saddle bag. No—this would not do. There must be another way.
The barkeep returned with three women in tow and arranged them in front of the vampire’s table.
Having picked two of these, the vampire followed them up the staircase, and the barkeep rang out his last call.
Abe’s mind, half pickled with whiskey, churned until it received “the blessings of another idea.” Knowing that his brother would never leave him to wander the streets alone, he told John that he’d changed his mind and made “arrangements” to spend the night with a woman.
John had hoped (fervently, I suspect) that this would be the case, and promptly made his own arrangements. We bade each other good night as the barkeep snuffed out the lanterns and locked the bottles away. Having given my brother and his friend ample time to reach their room, I followed up the stairs, alone. Here was a single, narrow hallway lit dimly by oil light and papered with an elaborate pattern of reds and pinks. A number of doors ran down both sides, all of them closed. At the end, another closed door faced me which, judging by the shape of the building, led outside to a back staircase. I walked slowly down the center, listening for clues as to which room held my vampire. Laughter from my left. Profanity from my right. Sounds which I have not the words to describe. Having reached the end of the hallway with no success, I at last heard what I had been waiting for on my right side—the voices of two women coming from the same room. Leaving John to enjoy the warm embrace of a stranger, I turned back, headed out into the cold, and donned my long coat. I knew the vampire would likely finish his business and leave before sunrise. And when he did, I would be waiting for him.
But by the second hour of pacing in the street, he’d grown tired, cold, and bored.
The slaughter of sixteen vampires had left me rather audacious, I admit. Not content to wait any longer in the cold, I resolved to be done with it. I walked up the snow-covered staircase at the rear of the building, taking care to step lightly, and preparing the martyr in my hand.
“Martyr” was the name Abe had given to a new weapon of his own creation. From an earlier entry in his journal:
I have recently read of the successes of an English chemist by the name of Walker who has developed a method of creating flame using nothing more than friction. Having procured the necessary chemicals to reproduce his “congreves,” * I set about dipping a number of small sticks in this mixture. The chemicals having dried, I bundled twenty of the little sticks tightly together (the whole being roughly twice the thickness of a fountain pen) and soaked all but the tip of one end in glue. When the exposed end is struck against a rough surface, the resulting flame is brief, violent, and brighter than the sun. This has the effect of rendering my black-eyed adversaries temporarily blind, allowing me to chop them to pieces with greater ease. I have used them twice with tremendous success (though the burns on my fingers bear witness to earlier failures).
I stood before the door in question with the martyr in one hand and my ax in the other, light from beneath the door illuminatin
g my snow-covered shoes. There were no voices coming from the other side, and I was presently struck by the thought of seeing the two girls slaughtered on the bed, their blood staining the sheets to match the patterned walls. Using the head of the ax, I knocked three times.
Nothing.
Having given them ample time to answer, I knocked again. Another moment passed with no noise from the other side. Just as I was weighing whether to knock again or not, I heard the creaking of the bed, followed by the creaking of someone walking across the wooden floor. I prepared to strike. The door opened.
It was him. Curly hair, the color of weathered wood. Nothing but a long shirt between his skin and the cold.
“What in the hell is it?” he asked.
Abe struck the tip of the martyr against the wall.
Nothing.
The damned thing failed to light, it having been left in the damp pocket of my coat for so long. The vampire looked at me quizzically. His fangs did not descend, nor his eyes blacken. But on seeing the ax in my other hand, they doubled in width, and he shut the door with such force as to rattle the whole building. I stood there, looking at the door like a dog looks at a book, all the while allowing the vampire time to escape on the other side. This having occurred to me at last, I took a step back and let the door have the full force of my heel. It sailed open with a tremendous noise—a noise I mistakenley [sic] attributed to the splintering of wood. I did not recognize it as a gunshot until after the lead ball had passed my head, missing it by no more than an inch and burrowing into the wall behind me. I will admit that I was a good deal shaken by this. So much so that on seeing him drop the pistol and climb out the window headfirst (his naked backside bidding me farewell) my first thought was not to pursue, but to examine my head lest I be bleeding to death. Satisfied this was not the case, I hurried into the room after him—the two ladies quite undressed and screaming in the bed next to me. I could hear doors opening down the length of the hallway as curious customers stepped out to investigate the commotion. On reaching the window, I saw my prey pick himself off the snowy street below and run barefoot into the night, slipping and landing on his bare hide at least twice before he escaped my view, screaming for help.
This was no vampire.
I cursed aloud most of the ride home. Never in my life had I been so embarrassed or made such a drunken error. Never had I felt like such a fool. If there was one comforting prospect, it was this: soon I would finally be free.
The winter of 1831 was an especially harsh one, but with March came the thaw, and with it the first birds in the sky and blades of grass on the earth. For Abe, the March thaw brought an end to twenty-two years with Thomas Lincoln. Years that had grown increasingly cold. It’s unlikely that they parted with anything more than a handshake, if that. Abe had only this to write on the day he left home for good.
Off to Beardstown by way of Springfield. John, John, and I hope to make the trip in three days.
Lincoln rode west with his stepbrother John and cousin John Hanks. The three young men had been hired by an acquaintance named Denton Offutt to build a flatboat and ferry goods down the Sangamon River to New Orleans, a round trip of about three months.
Offutt was remembered by at least one contemporary as “a hot-tempered, strict, noisy son of a bitch.” But like most people who encountered Abe Lincoln, he’d been impressed by the young man’s hard work, intelligence, and general disposition. On reaching Beardstown (in three days, as they’d hoped), Abe led his team in building the flatboat and loading it with Offutt’s cargo.
My second flatboat was twice as long and much improved from the first, and built with a great deal more speed—for not only did I have the experience of having done it once before, but I was gifted with additional hands to share the work. We were off about three weeks after we arrived, much to Mr. Offutt’s surprise and satisfaction.
The Sangamon River twisted through 250 miles of Central Illinois. It was a far cry from the “mighty Mississip”—more of a stream or a creek in some places than a river, and burdened with low-hanging branches and countless pieces of driftwood, each one at the mercy of the current. This troubled body wound its way down to the more forgiving Illinois River before reaching the Mississippi.
The quartet of flatboatmen (Offutt having elected to go along for the ride) had a terrible time getting down the Sangamon. Each day brought a new disaster—running aground; coming upon a fallen tree in the river. Legend holds that their flatboat became wedged on a dam near New Salem, Illinois, and began taking on water. As locals gathered on the shore, offering advice and laughing at the young men scrambling to save their vessel, Lincoln was again struck by one of his ideas. He bored a hole in the front of the boat (which hung over the dam) and let all the water run out of it. This raised the back of the boat enough to safely float it over. With the hole plugged, the men were on their way, and the people of New Salem were mightily impressed. Denton Offutt had been impressed, too—not so much by Abe’s ingenuity, but by the booming little settlement of New Salem.
Regardless of the river and its obstacles, Abe managed to find something of that elusive peace again during the trip. He took the time to record drawings, lengthy remembrances, and random thoughts in his journal nearly every night after they’d tied up. In an entry dated May 4th, he begins to expand on his one-sentence statement of the connection between slavery and vampires.
Not long after the first ships landed in this New World, I believe that vampires reached a tacit understanding with slave owners. I believe that this nation holds some special attraction for them because here, in America, they can feed on human blood without fear of discovery or reprisal. Without the inconvenience of living in darkness. I believe that this is especially true in the South, where those flamboyant gentlemen vampires have worked out a way to “grow” their prey. Where the strongest slaves are put to work growing tobacco and food for the fortunate and free, and the lesser are themselves harvested and eaten. I believe this, but I cannot yet prove it to be true.
Abe had written Henry about what he’d seen (and asking what it meant) after his first trip to New Orleans. He’d received no reply. With his departure from Little Pigeon Creek imminent, he’d decided to venture back to the false cabin and check in on his undead friend.
I found the place deserted. The furnishings and bed were gone, leaving the cabin nothing more than an empty room. On opening the door in the back, I found not a staircase leading down to the rooms below, but smooth, hard-packed dirt. Had the whole of Henry’s hiding place been filled in? Or had the whole been dreamed by me in my delusional state?
Abe didn’t stay in Indiana long enough to find out. He wrote something in his journal, tore out the page, and hung it on a nail over Henry’s fireplace.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WEST OF DECATUR, ILLINOIS
CARE OF MR. JOHN HANKS
New Orleans held little of the wonder it had the first time around, and Abe found himself eager to conclude their business and catch a steamer north. He stayed on for a few days to give his stepbrother and cousin a chance to explore, but barely ventured out, not wishing to happen upon another slave auction or wayward vampire. He did, however, stop by the saloon near Mrs. Laveau’s—not to drink, but to indulge the slim hope that he might run into his old friend Poe. It wasn’t to be.
Denton Offutt had been so impressed with the way Lincoln performed that he offered him another job upon their return to Illinois. Offutt saw the Sangamon River as a 250-mile stretch of opportunity. The frontier was booming, and towns were springing up all along its banks. Many believed that navigation would soon be improved, and that steamboats would soon bring passengers and goods through their backyards. Offutt was one of the believers. “Mark my words,” he said, “the Sangamon is the next Mississippi. Today’s settlement is tomorrow’s town.” If there was one thing Offutt knew, it was that every growing town needed a general store and a pair of men to run it. And so it happened that Abraham Lincoln and Denton Offutt returned to Ne
w Salem, Illinois, the scene of their infamous boat rescue, to stay.
New Salem sat atop a bluff on the west bank of the Sangamon, a tightly grouped collection of one- and two-room cabins, workshops, mills, and a schoolhouse that doubled as a church on Sundays. There were perhaps one hundred residents in all.
Mr. Offutt’s store being a month or more from opening for business, I found myself in the strange position of having far too much time, and far too little to do. I was much relieved, therefore, to make the acquaintance of a Mr. William Mentor Graham, a young schoolteacher who shared my love of books and who introduced me to Kirkham’s Grammar, which I studied until I could recite every rule and example by heart.
History remembers Abe’s towering intellect but forgets that, in those days, he was more towering than intellectual. Like his father, he had a natural gift for words. But when it came to writing them down correctly, he remained a victim of his limited schooling. Mentor Graham would help to correct this, and prove a key force in Lincoln’s ability to express himself eloquently later in life.
The cramped store at last stocked and ready, Abe went to work filling orders, tracking inventory, and charming customers with his natural wit and endless facts. He and Offutt sold cookware and lanterns, fabric and animal pelts. They measured out sugar and flour and filled bottles of peach brandy, molasses, and red vinegar from little barrels on the shelves behind the counter. “Anything for anyone at any time” as they liked to say. In addition to his meager salary, Abe received an allowance of goods and a small room at the back of the store. Here, he would read by candlelight and write in his journal until well after midnight.