I have given a great deal of thought to what the barkeep said. Have I ever wondered why Henry takes such an interest in hunting vampires? Have I ever wondered why he sends me in his stead? I admit that I have spent many an hour perplexed by these questions. Wondering if perhaps there is some deeper truth in them. That I am the sworn enemy of vampires doing the bidding of a vampire? There is no eluding this fact, nor the paradox inherent in it. That I am being used to further the unseen ends of one vampire in particular? I must admit the possibility. Yet after deliberating the whole, I have come to this conclusion:
It matters not.
If indeed I am nothing more than Henry’s servant, so be it. So long as the result is fewer vampires, I shall serve happily.
Henry’s letters began to arrive more frequently, and Abe ventured out when they did. But he didn’t venture alone.
I have found in Jack an able and eager hunting companion, and have endevored [sic] to share with him the whole of my knowledge with regard to destroying vampires (I needn’t teach him anything of quickness or bravery, for he enjoys a surplus of both). I am thankful for the help, for Henry’s letters have been coming so frequently that I find myself running from one end of the state to the other.
One night Abe found himself running through the streets of Decatur with a bloodied ax in his hands, Jack beside him with a crossbow. No more than ten paces ahead of them, a bald man made a beeline for the Sangamon River. The right side of his shirt was soaked with blood, and his right arm was dangling by his side, attached to his body by nothing more than a few bits of sinew and skin.
We ran past a pair of gentlemen on the street. They watched our little procession speed by, yelling after us: “You there! Stop at once!” What a sight we must have made! I could not help but laugh.
Abe and Jack chased the one-armed man to the water’s edge.
He dove in and disappeared beneath the black water. Jack would have gone in after him had I not grabbed him by the collar and yelled “no!” with what little voice I had left. Jack stood on the bank, gasping for breath and pointing his crossbow at every bubble that surfaced.
“I told you to wait for my signal!” yelled Abe.
“We would have been waiting all damned night!”
“Well, now we’ve lost him!”
“Shut up and keep a sharp eye! He has to come up for air sooner or later….”
Abe looked at Jack, his fury surrendering to a quizzical smile… then to laughter.
“Yes,” laughed Abe. “I expect he shall be coming up for air any day now.”
Abe put a hand on Jack’s shoulder and led him away from the riverbank, his laughter echoing through the sleeping streets.
If [Jack] is wanting in anything, it is patience. He is too quick to spring from hiding—and, I fear, too eager to share what he knows with his companions from Clary’s Grove. I am ever reminding him of the need for secrecy, and of the madness that would overtake all of Sangamon County if word of our errands were to spread beyond the two of us.
He’d been in the county all of a year, but in that short time Abe had become something of a local celebrity. A “young man whose hands are just as skilled with an ax as they are with a quill,” as his schoolteacher friend, Mentor Graham, put it. Abe had seen and heard enough from his customers to know what was on their minds.
Chief among their concerns is the river itself. What a state it is in! Barely more than a creek in some parts; choked by all manner of driftwood and obstructions. If we are to enjoy the bounty of the Mississippi, it shall need to be greatly improved, so that steamboats may navigate it freely. Such improvement, of course, will require a tremendous sum of money. I know of only one way (outside thievery) to procure it.
Abraham Lincoln decided to run for office. In announcing his candidacy for the Illinois State Legislature in a county newspaper, he struck a populist, if somewhat defeatist, chord:
I am young, and unknown to many of you. I was born, and have ever remained, in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of the county; and if elected, they will have conferred a favor upon me for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate. But if the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.
Shortly after Abe’s announcement, word of a “war with the Indians” reached New Salem.
A Sauk war chief named Black Hawk has violated a treaty and crossed [the Mississippi] into the village of Saukenuk to the north. He and his British Band * mean to kill or drive out every white settler they encounter and reclaim land believed rightfully theirs. Governor Reynolds has put out a call for six hundred able- bodied men to take up arms against these savages and protect the gentle people of Illinois.
Despite his political ambitions (or because of them), Abe was among the first in Sangamon County to volunteer. He would recall his excitement years later.
I had lusted for war since I was a boy of twelve. Here, at last, was my chance to see it firsthand! I imagined the glory of charging into battle—firing my flintlock and swinging my ax! I imagined slaughtering scores of Indians with ease, for they could be no quicker or stronger than vampires.
The volunteers gathered in Beardstown, a growing settlement on the banks of the Illinois River. Here, the men were given a crash course in the barest essentials of warfare by a handful of experienced militiamen. Before journeying north, Abe’s unit—a ragtag group of volunteers that included men from New Salem and Clary’s Grove— elected him to serve as their captain.
Captain Lincoln! I will admit that tears filled my eyes. It was the first time I had felt such esteem. The first time that I had been elected to lead my fellow men, and their sacred trust gave me more satisfaction than any election I have won or any office I have held since.
Among those marching off to battle with Abe were fellow vampire hunter Jack Armstrong and a young major named John Todd Stuart. Stuart was a slender man with “a high forehead and neatly parted black hair.” He had a “prominent” nose and “unkind” eyes that “did his gentle nature an injustice.” Stuart would play a crucial role in Lincoln’s postwar life, as an encouraging lawyer in Springfield, as a friendly adversary in Congress, and most of all as the cousin of a raven-haired Kentucky belle named Mary Todd.
The realities of war proved far less exciting than Abe’s imagination had conjured. With thousands of Illinois militiamen engaging the rebellious Indians to the north, there was little for the volunteers to do but sit and swelter. From an entry dated May 30th, 1832—after weeks spent camped out miles from the fields of battle:
My men have suffered greatly (from boredom), much blood has been shed (by mosquitoes), and I have swung my ax mightily (chopping firewood). Surely we have earned our place in the annals of history—for never has there been so little war in a war.
In early July, Abe and his men were finally discharged and began the long journey home, not a single war story to tell among them. Abe reached New Salem (where he found two letters in need of his “urgent attention”) less than two weeks before the election for state legislature. He resumed his candidacy at once, shaking hands and knocking on doors day and night. Unfortunately the field had ballooned to thirteen candidates while he’d been away battling mosquitoes. With so much time lost and so many candidates splitting votes, he didn’t stand a chance.
Abe finished eighth. But there was a silver lining, one that even the depressed and defeated Lincoln couldn’t help but see: of all three hundred votes cast in New Salem, only twenty-three had been cast against him. Those
