Abraham Lincoln: 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 illuminating 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 New 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.

And then, the candle having burned out, and the whole of the settlement having gone to sleep, he would don his coat and go out into the night in search of vampires.

II

With no Henry to guide him, and tethered to within a few miles of New Salem (for he had to be back to open Offutt’s store every morning at seven), Abe’s vampire-killing streak ground to a halt in the summer of 1831. He wandered the surrounding woods at night; ventured up and down the banks of the Sangamon. But save for investigating the occasional noise, there was no excitement to be had. It wasn’t long before Abe began to put more stock in rest than reconnaissance, and stopped venturing out altogether.

That’s not to say there weren’t opportunities to fight.

About a half-hour’s walk from New Salem was the settlement of Clary’s Grove, home to the rather unimaginatively named Clary’s Grove Boys, a gang of mostly related young men with a penchant for getting drunk and raising hell.

They were good for no less than two brawls a night in poor Jim Rutledge’s tavern, and were known to break up river baptisms by throwing rocks at the parishioners from the woods. One dared not cross them, or they might put out your windows—even stuff you in a barrel and leave you to the mercy of the Sangamon.

Above all, the Boys loved to “wrastle.” They prided themselves on being the “meanest, toughest, rowdiest wrastlers around.” So when word came that there was a “big fella come to work” at the general store in New Salem, they considered it their duty to size him up in person and, if need be, put him in his place.

Abe knew the Clary’s Grove Boys would be looking for a fight, just as they’d looked for one with every able-bodied man who moved into their territory for years. That’s precisely why he’d avoided them at all costs, hoping they would simply grow accustomed to having him around. He’d managed to go nearly two whole months without a confrontation (a local record). Unfortunately, Denton Offutt was a little man with a big mouth, and on seeing some of the Boys about, bragged that his new clerk was not only the smartest man in Sangamon County, but that he was “big enough to lick the lot” of them.

They came unannounced to the store and called me outside. On seeing ten or more gathered there, I asked what business we had. One of them stepped forward and said they intended to put their “best man” on me, on account of Mr. Offutt’s having described me as “the toughest man he ever saw.” I told them that Mr. Offutt had been mistaken. That I was not tough at all, and that I had no use for such wooling around. My refusal was not taken well, for I was then surrounded and threatened by the whole of the gang. They would not permit me inside, they said, until I’d had a go. If I refused, all of New Salem would know me as a coward, and they would turn our store over from “top to bottom.” I agreed, but insisted it be a fair fight. “Oh it ain’t going to be much of a fight at all,” said one of them, and called Jack to the front.

Jack Armstrong was a brick wall of a man, four inches shorter and twenty pounds heavier than Abe. He was the Clary’s Grove Boys’ unquestioned leader, and it was easy to see why.

He had a mean look about him, and kept his arms and chest taut as he moved around me, as if his whole body was a drawn bowstring that could be released at any moment. He pulled his shirt over his head and threw it to the ground, circling around me. Preferring to keep mine on, I began to roll up one of my sleeves. I had scarcely begun this when I was suddenly on my back—the air pressed from my lungs.

The Boys cheered as Jack sprang to his feet, and booed as Abe struggled to his.

Clearly, my insistence on a “fair fight” was to have no bearing. Jack came at me again, but this time I was ready—meeting his outstretched arms with mine, our backs and shoulders forming a tabletop as we leaned forward, pushing against each other. Our heads down; our feet kicking up dirt behind us. I suspect he was a good deal surprised at my strength. I was certainly surprised at his. I felt as if I had locked arms with a Russian bear.

But as mighty as Jack Armstrong was, he was nothing compared to the vampires Abe had grappled with in the past. With his lungs again full, Lincoln reached up and grabbed Jack’s neck with one hand, and the waist of his pants with the other.

Holding him thus, I lifted his body clean off the ground and over my head, keeping him there as he squirmed and struggled and cussed. This spectacle produced in his friends no shortage of distress, and I was suddenly set upon by the lot of them, punching and kicking at me in a group. This was an injustice that I could not allow.

Abe’s face went bright red, and he brought his full strength to bear, throwing Jack Armstrong against the side of the general store and yelling, “I’m the big buck of the lick!”

I grabbed the man nearest me by the hair and struck him in the face with my fist, rendering him insensible. The man nearest him caught another of my fists in his belly. I was quite content to whip the lot of them, one by one, and would have done so, had Jack not risen to his feet and called off his men.

Now it was Lincoln’s body that tensed like a drawn bowstring, his eyes fixed on a pair of Clary’s Grove Boys just out of arm’s reach.

Jack pulled a splinter or two from his side and stood next to me. “Boys,” he said, “I believe this man to be the toughest son’bitch ever to set foot in New Salem. Any man’s got a quarrel with him’s got a quarrel with Jack Armstrong.”

It was perhaps the most important battle of Abe’s early life, for word quickly spread from one end of Sangamon County to the other: here was a young man possessed of strong mind and body. A man they could be proud of. Their inauspicious introduction aside, the Clary’s Grove Boys quickly became some of Abe’s staunchest supporters, and would prove invaluable political assets in the years to come. Some of them even became his close friends, though none so close as Jack Armstrong himself.

I regretted losing my temper and embarrassing him in front of his relations. So, on the evening after our match, I invited him to share a drink at the store.

Abe and Jack shared a small bottle of peach brandy in the store’s back room, the sky still slightly blue even though it was approaching nine o’clock. Abe sat on the end of his bed, having offered the room’s sole chair to his guest.

I was surprised to find in this burly Armstrong a quiet, thoughtful man. Though four years my junior, he had a maturity surpassing that of many men twice his age, and an ease of conversation that one would not expect given his appearance. On seeing my copy of Kirkham’s Grammar, he spoke of the value of reading and writing, and bemoaned his shortcomings in both.

“Truth is, it was more important to be rough,” said Jack. “This is rough country, and it takes a rough man.”

“Must you choose one or the other?” asked Abe. “I’ve always found time for books, and I know something of rough country.”

Jack smiled. “Not Illinois rough.”

Abe asked what he meant.

“You ever seen somebody you love tore up and scattered all over the ground?”

Abe had not, and was clearly surprised by the answer. Jack fidgeted a little; looked at the floor.

“I gone walkin’ with a friend one night,” he said. “We was both nine, and the two of us was headed home from throwin’ rocks at flatboats, twistin’ down a trail we knew by heart. One minute he was right there next to me, chatterin’ away in the dark. Next minute he’d been pull’t up by a bear’s claws—pull’t into a tree by his head and drug clear to the top. I couldn’t see nothin’ up there in the dark. I could only hear him screamin’. Feel the warm drops on my head… on my lips. I ran and fetched help, and the men came runnin’ with their flintlocks. But there was nothin’ for ’em to kill. We spent half the morning pickin’ him up off the ground. Jared. Jared Linder was his name.”

There was silence now, and Abe knew he mustn’t be the first to fill it.

“Folks live ’round here know there’s somethin’ about these woods,” said Jack. “They know a man who don’t have his wits about him—a man who ain’t strong enough to take all comers—well, they know that’s a man liable to get himself killed walking one place to the next. People say us Boys stick close on account of our being kin. ’Cause we like raisin’ a ruckus. The truth of it is, we stick close ’cause that’s the only chance we got at growin’ old. Truth is, we act rough ’cause a weak man’s a dead man.”

“And you’re certain?” asked Abe. “I mean, you’re absolutely certain it was a bear?”

“Well, it sure as hell weren’t no tree-climbin’ horse.”

“I mean… might it have been something a bit more… unusual?”

“Oh,” said Jack, beginning to laugh. “You mean was it somethin’ like out of a story? Some kind a ghost?”

“Yes.”

“Hell, those stories’ve been goin’ up and down the river for years. Wild stories. People talking about witches, and devils, and—”

“Vampires?”

All trace of humor left Jack’s face at the mention of the word.

“People talking nonsense. Just scared is all.”

Maybe it was the half a bottle of peach brandy in his blood, or the feeling that he’d found a kindred spirit. Maybe he just couldn’t stand to keep all those secrets to himself anymore. Whatever the reason, Abe made a very sudden, very risky decision.

“Jack… if I tell you something incredible, will you promise to hear me fairly?”

III

Abe paced back and forth… back and forth over the soft dirt of the street, throwing the occasional glance toward the newly finished 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. The late-summer weather was much more agreeable this time around. So was the company.

It had taken no small amount of persuasion, but Jack had at last agreed to come to Springfield. At first, he had refused to believe a word of it—going so far as to call me a “damned liar” and threatening to “thrash” me for thinking him a fool. I begged his patience, however, and promised that I would either prove every word true, or pack my things and leave New Salem forever. I made this promise with every expectation of success, for that very morning a letter had at long last arrived.

The letter was addressed exactly as Abe had instructed above Henry’s fireplace:

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

WEST OF DECATUR, ILLINOIS

CARE OF MR. JOHN HANKS

It had been delivered to his relatives two weeks earlier, and forwarded to New Salem. Abe had torn it open upon seeing the familiar handwriting, and read it a dozen times at the counter throughout the day.

Abraham,

My apologies for not having written these many months. Vanishing is, I regret, a necessary part of my existence from time to time. I will write more often when I have settled into a more permanent home. In the interim, I hope you have settled into yours happily, and remain in good spirits and health. If you remain agreeable, you may visit upon the individual named below at your leisure. I believe him only a short ride from where you are now. I must warn you, however—he is quite a bit cleverer than those you have visited on in the past. You may well mistake him for one of your own kind.

Timothy Douglas.

The tavern near the square.

Calhoun.

Ever,

—H

Abe knew the tavern well. It was, after all, the site of his greatest vampire-hunting embarrassment. Could I have been right all along? Had the half-naked man who’d run off screaming for help been a vampire after all?

We walked in, plainly dressed (my long coat stored in my saddlebag outside). I took in the faces at each table, half expecting to see the curly-haired gentleman glaring back in his snow-covered long shirt. Would he run at the sight of me? Would his vampire nature compel him to attack? But I saw him not. Jack and I made to the counter, where the aproned barkeep busied himself polishing a whiskey glass.

“Pardon me, sir. My friend and I are looking for a Mr. Douglas.”

“Tim Douglas?” asked the barkeep, his eyes fixed on his work.

“The same.”

“And what business might you and Mr. Douglas have?”

“Business of an urgent and private sort. Do you know where he is?”

The barkeep seemed amused.

“Well, sir, you needn’t look far, that’s for certain.”

He put down the glass and stuck out his hand. “Tim Douglas. And your name, sir?”

Jack burst out laughing. There had to be some mistake. This inconsequential little man—a man who spent his nights polishing dirty glasses and playing matchmaker to whores and drunks? This was Henry’s vampire? Of course, I had no choice but take his hand, and did so. It was as pink and warm as my own.

“Hanks,” said Abe. “Abe Hanks, and I beg your forgiveness, for I mistook you to say ‘Tom’ Douglas. Yes, Thomas Douglas is the gentleman we’re looking for. Do you know where we might find him?”

“Well, sir, no. I’m afraid I’m not familiar with anyone by that name.”

“Then I thank you for your trouble and bid you a good night.”

Abe hurried out of the tavern, Jack laughing all the while behind him.

I resolved to wait. We had come this far, and Henry had never failed me in the past. At the very least, we would wait for this barkeep to close up and follow him home in the shadows.

After hours spent wandering the courthouse square, Abe (who’d since donned his long coat) and Jack (who hadn’t stopped teasing him since they left the tavern) finally saw the lights go dark and the barkeep make his way into the street.

He walked down Sixth Street toward Adams. We followed discreetly, Jack a good three paces behind; the ax ready in my hands. I darted into the shadows with every twitch of the barkeep’s head—certain he meant to turn back and discover us (Jack could hardly contain his laughter at the sight of my doing so). The little man kept to the center of the street, hands in his pockets. Whistling. Walking as any other man would walk, and making me feel a fool with each step. He rounded Seventh Street, and we followed. He rounded Monroe, and we followed. But on rounding Ninth Street, after letting him escape our sight for the briefest of moments, we saw no trace of him. There was no alley he could have slipped into. No house he could have entered in so short a time. How could it be?

“So… you’re the one.”

The voice came from behind us. I spun around, prepared to strike—but could not. For here was mighty Jack Armstrong, standing on his toes. His back arched. His eyes wide. And here was the little vampire standing behind him, a sharp claw pressed to his throat. Had Jack been able to see those black eyes and shining fangs, his terror would have been twofold. The barkeep suggested that I lay my ax on the ground if I did not wish to see my friend’s blood spilled. I thought his suggestion a good one, and let the weapon fall from my hand.

“You’re the one Henry spoke of. The one with a talent for killing the dead.”

Though Abe was surprised to hear Henry’s name, his face betrayed nothing. He could hear Jack’s panting quicken as the claw pressed harder against his throat.

“I’m curious,” asked the barkeep. “Have you ever wondered why? Why a vampire takes such an interest in ridding the earth of his own kind? Why he sends a man to kill in his stead? Or have you simply done his bidding blindly—the unquestioning, undyingly loyal servant?”

“I serve no man but myself,” said Abe.

The barkeep laughed. “Avowed as only an American could.”

“Help me, Abe,” said Jack.

“We are all servants,” said the barkeep. “However, of the two of us, I have the fortune of knowing which master I serve.”

Jack began to panic. “P-please! Let me go!” He struggled to free himself, but this only dug the barkeep’s claw in deeper. A trickle of blood ran over his Adam’s apple as the vampire gave a reassuring “shhhh….”

Abe used the opportunity to slip a hand into his coat pocket, unnoticed.

I must strike swiftly, lest my thoughts betray my plan.

“Your beloved Henry is no less deserving of that ax than the rest of us,” said the barkeep. “He merely had the good fortune of finding you fir—”

I pulled the martyr from my pocket and struck it against my buckle with all the quickness I possessed.

It lit.

Brighter than the sun—white light and sparks filling the whole of the street. The vampire retreated and shielded his eyes, and Jack pulled free. I knelt, grabbed the handle of the ax, and threw from my knees. The blade lodged in the vampire’s chest with a crack of bone and rush of escaped air, and he fell, clumsily clutching at the handle with one hand, dragging himself along the ground with the other. I let the martyr slip from my fingers to burn its last upon the ground, and retrieved my ax from the creature’s chest. That same familiar fear on his face. The fear of what hell or oblivion awaited. I did not care to revel in it. I raised the ax above my head and took his.

Jack was shaken to the point of being sick on his boots. Shaken by the fact that he’d been an inch away from death. By the glimpse he’d caught of those black eyes; those fangs after breaking free. He didn’t say a word on the ride home. Neither man did. They reached New Salem after sunrise and were about to part company in silence when Jack, who was continuing on to Clary’s Grove, pulled up his reins and turned toward the general store.

“Abe,” he said. “I wanna know everything there is to know ’bout killin’ vampires.”