A burgundian duke had hired them to kill a newborn baby who might in two decades have claim to Burgundy, but the child's father had also hired them to enhance his newborn son's chances. The baby was drowned in its bathwater. When the duke heard there was a similar price on his head, he attempted to buy off the Nilsson family. But the father of the dead child was so enraged that he kept raising his offer, until the duke could not match the sum. Knowing the cruelty of the Nilssons, the duke hanged himself.
Of course, the article stated, that was a long time ago and now neither Sweden nor the Nilssons were warlike. It was easy to believe looking at that lovely picture of the young Nilsson brothers in white shirts and shorts and blond hair, smiling from their ponies. Lhasa, nine, and Gunner, fifteen. Lhasa was going to be a singer and Gunner planned on medical research.
Well, that was the only nice thing in the entire magazine.
«Here's your trash,» said Miss Hazlitt, giving Dr. Smith the magazine.
«You know, Miss Hazlitt, there is a funny thing about computers. Information that goes in is called garbage in. And information that comes out is called garbage out. But nobody ever feeds it real garbage.»
«Well, this magazine is certainly garbage, I'll tell you that.»
«It certainly is, Miss Hazlitt. Thank you very much.»
CHAPTER SEVEN
A water buffalo is stronger than a steer, but that is not what makes him more dangerous. A water buffalo will attack while dying, but that is not what makes him more dangerous. A water buffalo will attack when neither endangered nor hungry, but that is not what makes him more dangerous.
What makes a water buffalo more dangerous is that he likes to kill. And in that respect, he is like many men.
The African marsh ate at his clothes, but Lhasa Nilsson did not mind. His two bearers were huddled high in the crook of a tree, holding the only two guns of his expedition, but Lhasa Nilsson did not mind. His left foot tingled with the beginning of jungle rot, but Lhasa Nilsson did not mind. He had seen his water buffalo, dripping flowers from its mouth, chomping on the rich flora of the African equatorial marsh. His massive black shoulders and horns combined with a thick skull to make a physique that was mockery to all but the most powerful rifle, and then the rifle would have to shoot to perfection just to injure this creature.
Nilsson drew the arrow back to his cheek. The buffalo was forty yards upwind. If Nilsson had given this animal the advantage of smell, he would have been a dead man. But it was his genius, the genius of his family, that made advantage appear to be disadvantage. Why shoot for the skull when there was the whole body?
The buffalo lifted its head, listening. Nilsson released the arrow with a spitting swish of a sound. Thwack, the arrow drove into the flank of the buffalo. It snorted its anger, enraged but apparently uninjured.
A mere sting. The buffalo bellowed. To the horror of the gunbearers in the tree, the white man with the yellow hair lowered his bow and shouted:
«Buffalo, hah, hah, hah. Here I am.»
The big black body, in almost arrogant joy, trotted the first few steps through the marsh, crushing plants and saplings. Then the hooves got steady footing and it lumbered into a charge, shaking the very tree in which the two gun bearers were cringing. The horns lowered and hooked but Lhasa Nilsson stood laughing, his hands on his hips. He looked up at the gun bearers in the tree and made a motion as if to shake it. One of the bearers shut his eyes and cried.
The buffalo was within fifteen paces when gray froth appeared at its mouth. It bellowed as its front legs stiffened, even while the body kept moving. The rear legs kicked as the beast boomed into the marshland, then fell and was still.
Lhasa Nilsson went to the dying buffalo. He took its head in his hands, while straddling its sweaty black neck, and kissed the beast.
«Beautiful, beautiful animal. In you I see me, except I would know better than to charge when wounded by a poison arrow. It is the circulation that kills you when you are poisoned. I am sorry I never had the opportunity to teach you that. Good night, sweet beast, until we all meet in the sunrise fires.»
Lhasa Nilsson clapped his hands, calling for the bearers. But they would not leave the tree. Did he not know that the water buffalo could spring to its feet with its last flicker of life and kill them all? Did he not understand the water buffalo?
Nilsson clapped his hands again. But the bearers would not come so he went back to his bow and strung it. Looking up at the tree, he aimed at a loincloth, which he saw was stained wet by fear.
«Do you know I can hit a target as small as a testicle with this?» he asked, and the bearers, clinging to the guns, scrambled down the tree. Nilsson gave the first bearer the bow and took the rifle.
«Now,» he said, «where is the village that has the problem with a panther?»
It was another day's trek to the village. In the hot summer it was reduced to a collection of huts in a bowl of dust. They had too much water where they didn't need it, and too little where they did. But that was a mark of civilization, making over the environment to suit man. Funny how travelers would come to these places looking for wisdom. Here, wisdom was only being able to endure the consequences of one's own sloth, ignorance, and superstition.
Lhasa Nilsson ceremoniously greeted the head man.
«And how is your beloved brother, friend?» asked the head man, who stood as high as Nilsson's chest.
«As usual,» said Nilsson glumly, and then, as an afterthought, «doing good works.»
«He is a very good man. A blessed man,» said the head man.
«Where is the panther?»
«That, we do not know. He is a giant among beasts, this panther. As big as the tigers. But where he is we do not know. He has killed a goat north of the village and attacked a man south of it and west his tracks have been spotted, but east is where he has killed a young woman and been seen many times.»
«I see,» said Nilsson. «You wouldn't know where and when he was seen, I take it.» He stood with his arms crossed in the dusty little village, as men and women chattered away, trying to remember correctly on which day the black panther did what and where.
Nilsson knew he would not get a logical answer. He felt that probably the only creature worth anything in this entire valley was the panther. But Gunner had sent him up here and after all, Gunner was now the leader of the family, even if he didn't act like it. Lhasa was not about to break family tradition. Besides, with that phone call to Switzerland, he might yet convince Gunner that he was a Nilsson, even if the rest of the Swedes had forgotten they were Norsemen who took the Irish as slaves and looted the foul Anglo Saxons at will.
So Lhasa Nilsson who was fifty, but looked thirty, and felt the strength in Ms body of a youth of twenty, listened to the little brown man with disdain, trying not to show his true feelings lest Gunner get word that one of his precious little monkeys had been insulted.
«Thank you very much,» said Lhasa, who received very little useful information. «You have been very helpful.»
The head man offered Nilsson beaters, but Nilsson shook his head. He wanted to hunt leopard. Nilsson did not tell the head man that beaters turned the proud leopard into just another big frightened cat. He was tired of killing big frightened cats. He wanted that black panther on his terms, and on the panther's. Besides. The bearers were going to be a problem. They might tell Gunner about the buffalo, and Lhasa Nilsson would have to make sure they didn't do that.
So with his two bearers, he began his own hunt, by circling the village in ever-wider circles. He searched the way his family had taught him, not by looking at single twigs or branches, but by looking at the whole valley-seeing where the good drinking streams were, where the high ground was, where a black leopard might well seek a good prowl. He noticed that his bearers were nervous, so he made them walk in front of him. He came to the village where the woman had been slain. Her husband wept as he explained how he had gone to look for her and had found her remains.