Seth Grahame-Smith - Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter

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?”