Abraham Lincoln_ Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith [53]
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