Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

[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