Blowing Off Steam Read online

  “With the fellow you stole the boat from.”

  “Well, yes, the fellow I won the boat from in Los Angeleez. Fair and square, Field, I stake my affidavit on that!”

  “I’m sure you won it. Now what are you doing?”

  “Get below and kill all smoke.” Rushy angled the boat toward the large cottonwood where he knew he could drop anchor, so they could think awhile. “We can’t head for Sacramento now! Field, we left everybody back in San Francisco. We left Calliope, and Tobias, Cincinnatus, Stan Sitwell, Maurice, our entire crew is left behind in San Francisco wondering where the hell we got to. Not to mention the passengers we’re supposed to take to Sacramento tomorrow. Where did those two pirates get to?”

  “Do you really think they were associates of the gambler in Los Angeles?” Field asked, not doing a single thing Rushy asked of him. “If so, someone else must be aware they were coming to see us and will be on the lookout for us.”

  “I can’t help but think. No one will be missing them if they were truly pulling the wool over our eyes. Listen, I’m going to go full astern by this sandbank. Then I’m heading right back to San Francisco. We’ll be in the dark going through the bay, but I think I can make it at least to the offing where we can drop anchor and get a skiff to take us ashore. Less chance of anyone seeing us that way. We can go ashore at the foot of Broadway.”

  But Field was holding the wheel still. “No. We can’t.”

  “Why not? Let go!”

  “Rushy. You have to drop anchor at this cottonwood.”

  “All right, already! Get below and kill all smoke already, will you?”

  Field looked ashen but did as ordered. It seemed to take Field a long time to kill smoke, and when Rushy shouted, “Drop anchor!” into the speaking tube, Field didn’t respond.

  “Why are we wasting time?” he shouted to himself. “Setting here on this island, when we should be heading back to San Francisco to get our crew! And where the hell are those two pirates—tied up in the engine room? How are we going to get rid of them? The sooner we start back to San Francisco the less black water I’ll have to navigate through.” Rushy thought. “Mayhap I shouldn’t be shouting through the speaking trumpet, if those two loafers are listening to me.”

  Field finally returned and said, “You know, I think that spy in that outrageous plaid cap threw a wedge into that paddlewheel. After you took the wheel in the offing, one of our side-wheels inexplicably got stuck. I had to give the pry bar to that dough-head Mike Hunt to unstick the wheel.”

  “But we left that peewee Celestial back in Sacramento. Didn’t we?”

  “I saw him again in San Francisco. He must have come down on some other vessel. Could he have been sent by Mike Hunt?”

  “No, why would Mike Hunt sabotage ‘his’ own boat? It makes more sense that it was Haight, trying to prevent us from racing. That bastard! He doesn’t own this boat. We’re the owners!”

  “Well, no one will be the owner if we can’t figure this out, Rushy.”

  Rushy exhaled heavily. “So. You gave the pry bar to Mike Hunt?” What had Field done? And where were the two pirates? “Did you give him instructions in how to use it?”

  “Not really.” With folded arms, Field glanced sideways at the beach.

  “Not really?” Something eerie was sinking tentacles into Rushy’s heart. Field had not told him where the two buffaloes were. And he wore a mighty shifty expression. That’s how I probably look when I climb out a married woman’s window. “Field. Where exactly is Mike Hunt at this very moment?”

  “Ah,” said Field. He licked his dry lips and looked at the jackstaff on the bow. “I believe he’s been churned into eggnog by the action of the wheel buckets.”

  Rushy slapped his forehead. Unbelievable! His mild-mannered engineering partner had scuppered an evil-doing pirate! “You mean there are pieces of a body stuck to my paddlewheel?”

  “Well,” Field said. He finally looked at Rushy, holding out two hands, palms down. “To be realistic, the wheel action of the past sixty miles has probably washed most of that matter from the buckets.”

  Rushy leaned out the open pilothouse window, crying, “A jackass hand clinging to one of my buckets? Lungs and intestines festooning the spokes? Land’s sake, Field! What were you thinking?”

  Field stood behind him. “If the mess is your big concern, Rushy, I don’t think we have much of a problem. I was more concerned with these two thugs who were going to murder us if we didn’t give up our boat. I didn’t exactly have time to give Mr. Hunt detailed instructions on how to use the pry bar, seeing as how someone was steaming eagerly out into the bay.”

  Rushy faced his partner. “Well, that was a brilliant move, you’ve got to admit. We could never have overtaken those miserable old critters if I hadn’t steamed away.” Exhaling heavily, another thought occurred to Rushy. He intoned, “So. Where exactly has Mr. Grundman got to?”

  Rushy didn’t like the way Field looked askance now, rubbing his sooty face wearily. “I believe,” Field said, “he’s lying on the engine room floor.”

  Rushy dared to inquire, “Dead?”

  “Cold as a wagon tire.” Field cleared his throat. “It appears a bucket of tar was burning in the firebox, and some vents inexplicably were closed.”

  Rushy staggered weakly to the wheel and gripped the pins to stay upright. He knew that Field had done the only possible thing, given all the facts in this connection. The jig was up—those boneheads were going to murder them after stealing their boat. What else did they expect? Everyone on the Sacramento River knew Rushy and Field and would wonder why some dough-heads were suddenly piloting their boat. The pirates could have just claimed Rushy and Field sold it to them, but there would have been the matter of why the river men had suddenly vanished into thin air. Not that Brannan’s Vigilance Committee would inject overmuch enthusiasm into pursuing the matter, but someone would. Soquel Haight would. Calliope would. The pirates probably planned on taking the steamer into the Pacific and back to Los Angeles where no one knew Rushy.

  No, this was the best and probably only option. Now he was alive, in possession of his own boat, and there was only one small matter—

  “We’ve got to get rid of that cadaver,” Field said.

  “We’ll weight it down,” said Rushy, an instant expert on the subject of corpse disposal. “I’ve seen many floating bodies from engine explosions in my time, and those bodies float until they bloat. One fellow, though, crammed so many gold bars into his pockets he sank right to the bottom of the river. Course, we don’t want to waste gold bars.”

  “Good. I’ve got all kinds of valves, screws, and gaskets we can weight him down with.”

  Rushy nodded. “Boy. Are we going to be in for a tongue-lashing when Haight hears about this.”

  Field shrugged. “Why should he hear? Did anyone see you board with those two jacklegs sticking a revolver in your back?”

  “No one who matters.” Rushy thought. “No one who’d care.”

  “And if we’re right—if they were merely pirates operating on their own, without being sent by anyone in Los Angeles—no one will be looking for them.”

  Rushy pointed out, “Even if they were sent from Los Angeles. Who could prove they actually boarded our boat? We can just claim we’ve never seen them before in our lives.”

  Field exhaled all in a rush and placed his hands on Rushy’s shoulders. “Listen, Rushy. Let’s do this and get back to San Francisco so we can find our crew. We’ll take one more load of Celestial corpses to Sacramento, then we’ll cut ties with Haight, go on the square.” He caressed the side of Rushy’s face. “This isn’t your business. It’s mine. You have no reason to be endangering your life simply because my son back East needs care. Damnation.” He squeezed his eyes shut as though to block out unsettling visions. “When that damned highwayman Hunt bashed you over the head, I just went loco. They wouldn’t even let me look at you to make sure you were alive.”

  Were tears welling in Field’s
eyes? “No, Field. We’ll keep doing our river business until your son gets better.”

  “He’s not—” Field had to choke down his next words.

  Rushy stroked his partner’s face. “Field, Field.” He knew what Field was trying to say. He’s not going to get better. People with consumption, kids in particular, tended to die, not get better. “We’re going to send your sister as much money as we can make. It was my load of sin that had those buffalo storming onto our boat in the first place. You could’ve just as easily been shot. It appears that I owe you now.”

  He kissed his partner with bloodied lips. Field didn’t seem repulsed and flung his arms around Rushy’s neck, clinging to him with desperation. Field kissed him like a drowning man, over and over, panting with a frenzied fear.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “That’s right. Slide that slick wooden handle right up your sweet, tight ass.”

  Field was aroused beyond any previous stimulation to have Rushy pressing into his nude body as he hung from the overhead pulley in the pilothouse. As Rushy’s clothed hips pressed against his, Rushy impaled him on one of the pilot wheel’s pins. Rushy had found the main kingpin with the rudder at dead center and secured the wheel straight up with a length of line.

  The shiny wooden handle slid in one inch, two inches, three inches. Field knew he couldn’t take the length of that thing up his ass, but Rushy kept pressing. “You want to know what it feels like? Having a stiff long thing up your ass? You-all thrust a giant ivory dildo up my ass. Now you know how it feels,” Rushy whispered huskily into his ear. “Helpless. Can’t move. Being molested by a long, fat, inanimate object. This is only practice for later, partner. Wait till I slide my fat horse’s cock up your ass.”

  Field squirmed, as much from the embarrassment of being in an extremely compromising position as from wanting to feel the fullness of the pin inside him. Rushy was right. It was incredibly arousing being impaled by that thick, stiff male implement. It was stimulating to have his own meat pulsating pointlessly in midair, and now pinioned between his abdomen and Rushy’s packed broadfall. Instead of making him feel vulnerable and maybe even feminine, as he’d imagined Rushy had felt when violated by the dildo, in an odd way it gave his masculinity even more potency.

  No, it wasn’t feminine in the slightest to grapple with a virile wolf such as Rushy. When they rubbed their pricks together they created a manly force. One didn’t have to be more or less subservient to the other. The dominant one wasn’t necessarily more masculine.

  Although right now, it felt invigorating to be bound and reamed like this. Almost as if, through his helplessness, it was Field who was seducing Rushy, not the other way around.

  He knew it drove Rushy wild to see him seemingly powerless like that. Rushy had gone loco the first time he’d hoisted Field up by that pulley and eagerly groped his prick and balls. That the old man—or was it the two lusty youths, or Stan Sitwell even?—watched with a prurient frenzy had only sent Rushy further over the top, Field knew. Right now, they had succeeded in collecting an audience of one, an older fellow with bushy eyebrows wearing an absurd Zouave’s tassled cap.

  Rushy rotated his hips against Field, capturing the phallus beneath his hip bone. He massaged it as though his hip bone was his hand, lovingly, licking his lips. “That’s the German invert who likes fondling my balls. He’s drooling over your big, hulking cock now, Field.”

  Running a hand up Field’s chest, Rushy pinched a nipple, and a surge of lust shot through Field, right down to his balls. As usual they were performing in plain daylight while steaming upriver, and a luxurious breeze wafted in the opened windows, shimmering heat waves reflecting off the wide stretches of valley beyond.

  Field, too, rotated his hips, the better to feel the pin thrust up his asshole. He found that if he hoisted himself up a few inches using the strength of the lines slung over the pulley, when he plunged himself back down atop the pin, it was the way he imagined being fucked by another man must feel. There was even a little wiggle to the wheel, for Rushy had not tied it down completely. The big wooden penis jiggled in his ass, rubbing inner spots Field had never imagined could be rubbed. “It’s your balls that invert wants to lick, Rushy. Not mine.”

  Rushy’s eyes seemed to grow fierier the more eagerly Field fucked himself on the pin. Calliope approached with glowing eyes, running a hot hand down the slope of Field’s back to lustily grab a handful of his haunch where it spread out against the wheel ring that held the spokes in place. She was bolder than Rushy and slid her naughty hand around front to wrap her little fist around his pulsating meat. She used her thumb to smear about the drops of jism that had already been discharged, and Field inhaled with a hiss at the pure pleasure.

  Calliope said, “It’s your cock, Field. That perverted pederasta grabbing his crotch is drooling over your nice fat penis. He can’t see Rushy’s cock. He’s not even looking at Rushy.”

  Field was proud of the way his pectorals, biceps, and abdomen muscles stood out in sharp relief when he hoisted himself up by the pulley. He was a hale, athletic bastard, he knew. And he knew that German pederasta was foaming at the mouth watching his muscles flex. He played it to the hilt to seduce the twisted invert, and he was gratified when the dough-head popped his broadfall buttons and took his little, red, crooked tool out. This was a new power—the power to arouse strangers, even if they were utter reprobates.

  Calliope exhaled a stream of musty opium smoke in Field’s face. He breathed deeply of the library aroma. He already knew he’d enjoy opium many times in the future, that’s how heady the effect was. She must have put the pipe back onto the layout tray, for now she gripped the back of his neck and sucked on his earlobe while thumbing the bulging glans of his prick. “He’s looking at your fat, delicious cock, Field. He’s wishing he was the one buried deep in your ass.”

  Field hoisted himself a few inches on the pulley, lasciviously rotating his hips as he sank back down on the wooden dildo. The reprobate, who faced him directly, separated only by a pane of glass, jerked on his own bone so assiduously it looked as though it pained him. Rivulets of sweat cascaded down his furrowed forehead as a thread of spittle leaked from his lower lip.

  “Hey, Field,” Rushy protested. “That’s my nan-boy you’re entertaining now. Herr Bloch wants me, you bastard.”

  “Go get your own nan-boy.” Field grinned. “He’s mine now.”

  Apparently his toying with the pilot’s wheel was exciting someone else. Calliope rudely shoved Rushy away from the wheel and took his spot. “Good Lord, Field,” she murmured with heavily lidded eyes. “You’re a beautiful, gorgeous load of man.” She brushed her lips against his, and Field tasted the claret and opium she’d imbibed. Mushrooms and onions from her galley coated her mouth, as she was making a roast sirloin of beef. She licked his lower lip as she slowly, salaciously corkscrewed his bulging penis using the drips of sperm to lubricate his pole. “Do you know how much I desire you?”

  “No,” Field replied, teasingly. He wanted to hear it.

  He felt her smile against his mouth. “Just watching you makes me wet. So wet I’m dripping down my thigh.”

  It was so unusual to even hear a woman say the word “thigh,” Field instantly felt about to spurt. He raised himself up and down on the pin to send the blood to his asshole instead of his prick, but it didn’t seem to help. He sucked on her lovely strawberry mouth. “Callie. I’d love to lap up your juices, but I’m stuck in this position for now.”

  She giggled. “And what a hefty, strapping position it is, my big stallion.” She raised one slipper and balanced herself by placing her toes on the mouthpiece of the speaking tube. To maintain her balance and allow Field to continue to fuck himself on the wheel, she reached a hand up—

  “No!” Rushy cried. He grabbed her hand and yanked it away from the bell pull. “That’s the steam whistle!”

  “Oh.” Calliope grinned lazily, rubbing the tip of her nose against Field’s, tickling his balls with the nails of her o
ther hand. “I’ll wait to pull that one until I’ve satisfied you.”

  Damnation! Was she truly going to satisfy him? Rushy had been the only one to bring him to completion thus far, and the prospect of Calliope…Field was panting so shallowly he felt light-headed. “Damnation, woman. Do it, or I’ll explode in your hand.”

  “Rushy,” Calliope breathed. “Is it all right if I—”

  “Dammit!” Field shouted. “You don’t need Rushy’s permission. Suck me, Callie!”

  Calliope breathed, “With pleasure,” and instantly dropped to her knees.

  “Saint Michael!” Field cried as the dear woman inhaled the entire length of his cock down her throat. He squirmed and swiveled his ass lewdly, simultaneously fucking both Calliope’s mouth and the pin in a double wave of ecstasy. Only vaguely did he notice Herr Bloch ejaculate against the window glass in unctuous globs of white, and reliable old Stan Sitwell, who was supposed to be below manning the firebox, shove him aside and take his place in the audience with gleaming eyes. He had probably heard their antics through the speaking tube.

  As Calliope noisily suctioned his pulsing cock, Rushy stepped up to the wheel and took Field’s jawbone in his hand. “Land’s sake,” Rushy said thickly. “You look stunning being sucked like that. Skewered on that wheel like an obedient prisoner.” He plastered his wet, open mouth to Field’s, emanating saltwater and smoke, humping his erect penis through his pants against Field’s nude hip. Rushy mingled his fingers in Calliope’s elaborate blonde coiffure as though to encourage her in her sucking of his partner’s prick. Now he gnawed on Field’s earlobe and throat as he pinched Field’s nipple so tautly that Field gasped and filled Calliope’s mouth with a small, insistent gusher of jism.

  “Fuck that dildo, Field,” Rushy said in a new demanding tone. “You like having that hard, long thing up your ass, don’t you? It makes you hot.”