Abe had burned it.
It was the rash act of an angry child, one that he would live to regret (though never enough, it seems, to tell his stepmother the truth). Years later he would attempt to explain himself:
How could I worship a God who would permit [vampires] to exist? A God that had allowed my mother to fall prey to their evil? * Either He was powerless to stop it, or He was complicit in it. In either case, He was undeserving of my praise. In either case, He was my enemy. Such is the mind of an angry eleven-year-old boy. One that sees the world as a choice between two disparate certainties. One that believes a thing “must” be this way or that. I am ashamed that it happened, yes. But I would not compound that shame by pretending that it did not.
With his faith in ruins, eleven-year-old Abe took his resolution a step further in this undated manifesto (c. August 1820):
Henceforth my life shall be one of rigerous [sic] study and devotion. I shall become learned in all things. I shall become a greater warrior then [sic] Alexander. My life shall have but one purpose. That purpose is to kill * as many vampires as I can. This journal shall be where I write about killing vampires. No one other then [sic] me shall read it.
His interest in books, which to date had merely been ravenous, became obsessive. He walked more than an hour to the home of Aaron Stibel, a shoemaker who boasted a personal library of some 150 volumes, twice a week to return an armful of books and borrow another armful. He accompanied his stepmother to Elizabethtown whenever she visited a relative, sequestering himself in the Village Street home of Samuel Haycraft Sr., one of the town’s founders, and the proud owner of nearly five hundred books. Abe read about the occult; found mentions of vampires in European folklore. He compiled a list of their rumored weaknesses, markings, and habits. It became common for stepmother Sarah to find him asleep at the table in the morning, his head resting on an open page.
When he wasn’t improving his mind, Abe was hard at work improving his body. He doubled his daily wood chopping. He built long, winding stone walls. He practiced throwing his ax into a tree. First from ten yards. Then twenty. When stepbrother John invited him to play at war, he jumped at the chance, and fought with a new intensity that left more than one neighbor boy’s lip bloodied. Based on the information he’d gathered in books, Abe whittled a dozen stakes and made a quiver to carry them in. He fashioned a small crucifix (although he had declared God his “enemy,” it appears that Abe wasn’t opposed to his help). He took to carrying small pouches of garlic and mustard seed. He sharpened his ax until the blade “blinded all who looked upon it.” At night, he dreamed of death. Of hunting down his enemies and driving stakes through their hearts. Of taking their heads. Of glorious battle. Years later, as the clouds of Civil War loomed on the horizon, Abe looked back at his youthful bloodlust.
There are but two types of men who desire war: those who haven’t the slightest intention of fighting it themselves, and those who haven’t the slightest idea what it is. Of my youth I can decidedly say that the latter was true. I ached for this “war” with vampires, knowing nothing of its consequences. Knowing nothing of holding a dying friend in my arms or burying a child. Any man who has seen the face of death knows better than to seek him out a second time.
But in the summer of 1821, these lessons were still years off. Abe wanted his war with vampires, and after months of vigorous study and exercise, he was ready to launch the opening salvo.
He wrote a letter.
IV
Abe was uncommonly tall for a boy of twelve. He already stood shoulder to shoulder with his father, who was himself considered tall at five-foot nine. Like his ill-fated grandfather, good genes and years of toil had made him exceptionally strong.
It was a Monday, “the kind of summer day one finds only in Kentucky—shining and verdant; the breeze carrying warmth and dandelion seeds.” Abe and Thomas sat atop one of their smaller outbuildings, making repairs to its winter-beaten roof. They worked in silence. Though Abe’s hatred had cooled, he still found it difficult to be in his father’s presence. A journal entry dated December 2nd, 1843 (not long after the birth of Abe’s own son, Robert), sheds some light on the nature of his contempt.
Age has made me temperate in many things, but on this point I remain steadfast. His weakness! His ineptness! He failed to protect his family. Thought only of his own needs, and left others to their cost. Had he simply gathered us and fled to some far-off territory. Had he merely asked our neighbors for some small advance against future work. But he did nothing. Nothing but sit idly. Silently. Secretly hoping that somehow, by some miracle, his troubles would simply disappear. No, it needs no further elaboration than this: had he been any other man, she would be with me still. This I cannot forgive.
Thomas, to his credit, seemed to understand and accept his condemnation. He hadn’t mentioned the word “vampire” since that night. Nor had he pressed Abe to talk.
Sarah had taken the girls to help her clean Mr. Gregson’s house that Monday afternoon, and John was off fighting some imaginary war. The two Lincolns were at work on the roof when a horse approached carrying a child on its back. A plump child in a green coat. Either that or a very short man. A short man with dark glasses and… one arm.
It was Jack Barts.
Thomas put his hammer down, his heart just about thumping a hole in his chest at the thought of what Barts could want now. By the time he climbed down and began walking to meet their unexpected guest, Abe was already halfway to the cabin. Barts handed Thomas his reins and dismounted with some difficulty, hanging on to the saddle horn with one arm while his stout legs struggled to find the ground. Having done so, he found the fan in his coat pocket and put it to use, cooling his face. Thomas couldn’t help but notice that there wasn’t a bead of sweat on him.
“Simply dreadful… dreadfully, miserably hot.”
“Mr. Barts, I—”
“I must admit, your letter surprised me, Mr. Lincoln. A happy surprise, to be certain. But a surprise nonetheless.”
“My letter, Mr. Ba—?”
“Had you written it earlier, perhaps the unpleasantness which transpired between us might have been avoided. Terrible… terrible thing…”
Thomas was too confounded to notice Abe walking toward them with a long wooden object in his arms.
“You’ll forgive my haste,” said Barts, “but I should like to be off at once. I have business in Louisville which must be attended to this evening.”
Thomas couldn’t think of a thing to say. Not a damned thing.
“Well? Do you have it, Mr. Lincoln?”
Abe joined them, cradling a long, hand-carved chest with a hinged lid. A tiny coffin for a slender corpse. He stood beside his father, facing Barts. Towering over him. Leering at him.
“Strange,” said Abe, breaking the silence. “I hadn’t expected you during the day.”
Now it was Barts who found his brain tied in knots.
“Who is this child?”
“My son,” said Thomas, petrified.
“It’s here,” said Abe, raising the chest. “All of it. All one hundred dollars, just like the letter said.”
Thomas was sure he’d misheard. Sure this was a dream. Barts looked at Abe, suspicious. Bewildered. A smile spread over his face.
“My God!” said Barts. “For a moment I thought us all mad!”
Barts began to laugh. Abe opened the lid—just enough to slip his hand inside.
“Good boy,” said Barts, laughing heartily now. “Let us have it then.”
He reached his hand up and ran his thick fingers through my hair. I could think of nothing but the way my
