Chapter 9

Once he was out of sight of the house, Fire Bringer ducked into a secluded alcove and TPed back to Texas to pick up his horse and continue his journey. Fire Bringer had found that he could stow live beings in his storage place and return them without harm, so that was where he often kept his horse.

He said to Storm Who Walks, "That was an interesting trip. I had forgotten how loving a family could be. My father was no prize, but he did act as if he loved me, and I know that my mother did love me. I wish that I could experience that kind of relationship, again. You are nice to talk to, but I do get kind of lonely."

"If I were still alive, I would kick myself for not thinking of that! I wish that you had said something sooner, but I have to take full responsibility for the oversight. Please forgive an old spirit who was too tied up in his own feelings to realize what you would be going through."

"Please don't blame yourself, Storm Who Walks. I have been having too much fun to realize the gap in my life, myself. Well, my family is dead, now, so there is no point in worrying about it. I'll just learn to cope with the situation."

Fire Bringer continued to ride toward El Paso for the rest of the day without incident. His Far Seeing was not infallible, thus he did miss a few situations which could have used his intervention, but he missed seeing them, so life just went on as usual. He reached a fair size town, so he decided to stop for the night. He put his horse in a livery stable and found a room in the hotel for himself. After supper, he visited a saloon for some entertainment.

He was now 14 years old, but looked more like 18 or 19, so he had no trouble joining a poker game. Fire Bringer was careful not to cheat, but he was also careful not to let anyone else in the game cheat either. This had led to some altercations in the past, but he tried not to be too judgmental. Usually, he simply found a way to chastise the cheater without revealing his super powers and without killing him, but some cases were not that easy to resolve. This was a case in point.

One of the men playing in the game was cheating, but he was doing it in order to feed his family. He was a small scale farmer who had a place just out of town. His water supply had dried up, and he had made such a poor crop this year that he could not pay his bills, much less provide for his family. He was well liked around the community, and people wanted to help him, but he was too proud to accept charity. The other men at the table knew that he was cheating, he really wasn't that good at it, but he never took more than a few dollars away from the table each week, so they wrote it off to charity and didn't begrudge the man the small amount he gleaned.

Fire Bringer read the man's mind and saw that he hated what he was doing, but didn't know any other way around his problem. Fire Bringer decided to help by fixing the man's water problem. He consulted with Storm Who Walks and discovered that there was plenty of water available, but it was too deep to do the man any good. However, the situation was such that Fire Bringer could cut a channel to the water and artesian forces would bring it to the surface.

That night, Fire Bringer used his Far Sight to examine the farmer's property and determine where the best place would be for the fresh water supply. After a thorough examination, Storm Who Walks and Fire Bringer decided that the best choice would simply be to reactivate the stream that the family had been depending on and had since dried up. Fire Bringer found the place where the stream had formerly exited the ground and simply cut a new channel down to the aquifer underlying this region. Water began flowing immediately and soon had the stream exceeding its previous level. Hopefully, now the farmer would go back to farming and give up cheating at poker, because, eventually, somebody was going to get pissed and blow his head off!

Fire Bringer moved on the next day and was letting his Far Seeing range far and wide, somewhat at random. He had let his vision run out several hundred miles, and he was now looking at things happening in Mexico. He had not spent much time looking over things there, since he'd had plenty to do just covering the USA. This looked like something important, though: an Indian was tied between two posts and being whipped by two men who were alternating blows. It was a wonder that the Indian was still alive; his back was so chopped up that he would undoubtedly be disabled for life if he lived through this horrible treatment.

Fire Bringer did not hesitate; he jumped to the vicinity and froze the whips in place with TK. He was wearing a modification of his body armor so that he appeared to be a man dressed in glowing armor. The glow was so bright that it could even be seen in direct sun light. He was in the process of experimenting with various appearances for his armor to see what would be the most impressive. The glow varied from yellow to red and appeared to ripple up and down his body as if he were a walking flame.

He turned to another man who appeared to be in charge and asked, "Why are you whipping this man to death? What has he done to warrant such treatment?"

"Mind your own business. I am not frightened by a man in a fancy suit. This piece of shit stole a steer from me and I am punishing him for it."

"Do you plan to kill him?"

"Yes, then I will send him back to his people as an object lesson not to mess with Don Rodrigo Hernando Alvarez y Vasquez."

"Well, I suggest that you stop right now while there is still some chance of saving his life before I am forced to take a hand."

The Mexican became enraged at this and shouted for his bodyguard to seize Fire Bringer and tie him to a whipping post. Fire Bringer stood there and waited for the men to try to hold him. As soon as one of the men touched him, Fire Bringer heated the man's skin hot enough to give him a 3^rd degree burn on his hand and a 1^st degree burn over the rest of his body. The burned man fell to the ground, nursing his burned hand. Two other men tried to carry out the order, with the same result.

While this was going on, Storm Who Walks examined the whipping victim and said that he had already died. An Indian woman, who appeared to be Mescalero Apache, and two children were standing to one side. Their hands were tied behind them, and the woman's clothes were torn; she had probably been raped before the whipping began. All three Indians had ropes running from nooses on their necks to another whipping post. Don Rodrigo appeared to be given to whipping as punishment.

In disgust, Fire Bringer froze all of the Mexicans in place and put up a wall of frozen air around all of them to keep any possible interference at bay. He then TPed himself to the woman so that she could talk to him without having to shout. The TP was to establish in her mind that he was a powerful spirit who was there to right a wrong as much as he could. This fit with Indian mythos, so he thought that he could help her some.

He asked the woman, "Why was this man beaten to death?"

"He was my husband. This has been a bad year for game in this area, so we were all hungry. He killed one of the steers so that we would not starve to death. He had 2 children to feed, and I am going to have another child in a few months if those animals who raped me did not kill it."

After a quick consultation with Storm Who Walks, Fire Bringer said, "Your unborn child is in good condition. They did not harm it. Where is the steer? I will fetch it for you. Think of the location so that I may find it."

The woman concentrated for a moment and Fire Bringer read her mind. PUFF! The half-butchered steer appeared on the ground in front of the woman and children. "Now, think of where you live, and I will transport you there, along with this steer. I will also transport more animals there so that the other people in your village may also eat." The woman concentrated and PUFF! The woman, her children, and the dead steer were transported to the space in front of her hut. Five more of Don Rodrigo's cattle were also transported there. The only thing left to show that the Indians had been there were three wrist bindings and three leashes with a noose on the end.

Fire Bringer turned his attention to Don Rodrigo and read his mind in some depth. The man had been torturing helpless people for nearly 30 years, mostly by whipping. An examination of his mind showed that there was no prospect of Don Rodrigo changing his ways, so the only practical thing to do was to kill him. The most appropriate way seemed to be by whipping him to death, so that was what Fire Bringer proceeded to arrange.