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  “God, it makes me hot. I wish it was your cock screwing me up the ass.” Dear Lord, why had he said that? Field said the damndest things when aroused beyond belief.

  But it made Rushy smile and snake his tongue into Field’s mouth to lick the roof of his mouth. “You damned perverted pederasta,” Rushy whispered. Shoving Field’s hips back down on to the pin, he snarled, “Fuck that long dildo, Field. Shove that thing up your tight, virginal ass. Shoot your load into her pretty little mouth.”

  It was the “fuck that long dildo” that got to Field, and he instantly exploded into Calliope’s pretty little mouth. Rushy held the back of her head so she was forced to gulp mouthful after mouthful as Field spewed. Waves of ecstasy jerked and twitched his hips as Calliope struggled to swallow his seed, and when Rushy bent and bit down on his nipple, he roared like a dying bison.

  Calliope finally detached her mouth with a giant gasp as Field strove to shove Rushy off his nipple. “God!” he cried. “Knock that off, you nasty bugger!”

  Rushy stood upright, chuckling fondly as he stroked Field’s chin. “She gets a taste of a meal I’ve enjoyed before.”

  “Help her up,” Field commanded, wiggling his hips to rid his ass of the wooden pin. He was now much too sensitive to have anything touching him. “Let me down.”

  Rushy put his hands on his hips. “Well, which one is it, then? Help her up, or let you down?”

  “Let him down,” Calliope gasped, struggling to her feet as she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. As Rushy reached behind Field to unknot the line, Calliope whipped his handkerchief from his pocket and blew her nose. “Whew.” She smiled at Field with watery eyes. “Your semen tastes delicious, my love. You must have an excellent chef, to eat so well your semen tastes so good. Except it’s coming out my nose.” She blew again.

  Field stretched his arms this way and that to get the blood back into them. “That’s the biggest compliment I’ve ever received.” My love. She had called him my love!

  Rushy shoved Calliope toward Field. “Kiss her, Field. Lick your tasty jism from her tongue.”

  Field did so, finally able to gather the woman in his arms instead of dangling helplessly from a pulley. His seed was not distasteful, Calliope was right about that. But it wasn’t nearly as delicious as Rushy’s own semen that he’d savored with delight.

  A commotion outside on the texas roof grabbed their attention then.

  “Hold your horses, Ludwig!” Tobias’s loud grating voice was yelling at the hapless Herr Bloch. Field looked just in time to see Tobias toss the rubbery lumber merchant off the roof. “And you, Stan! I’m ashamed of you!” The giant Stan held his hands out innocently, although it was apparent his tool jutted from his broadfall. The tool that was, surprisingly, not of the correct mammoth proportions to its owner. “I thank you for your information, but you simply can’t be lurking on rooftops watching…” Tobias fluttered an impotent hand. “Watching this!” He yanked Stan by the arm. “Get back below to the firebox, you thug. We’re nearing Sacramento.”

  Tobias entered the wheelhouse with a great bang of the door. “All right, now that I’ve gotten rid of your admirers.” He looked from person to person with disapproval. Rushy had untied the wheel and was now steering, but Field’s pants were still down around his ankles and his prick still throbbed, purplish, in midair. “Tut, tut. Didn’t Mr. Haight warn you about this exact thing? Put that giant hose away, Captain Trueworthy—nobody’s impressed!”

  “We are.” Calliope giggled, helping Field button his pants.

  Tobias continued ranting. “What were you thinking? What is this, the Sex Boat? The Jack Hayes is known as the Gold Boat, and what do we have here but the Fornication Boat?”

  “Soquel Haight doesn’t own this boat!” Rushy shouted as he examined the river with his keen eye.

  The dazzling autumn sun silhouetted the intricate lace of the smokestacks like cameos against the gauzy sky. Field would have been content to lounge here in blissful happiness, but now the lawyer was yelling, “Hey. You’re lucky I waited until this bumsucker was done siphoning the life out of you.”

  Field instantly sprang toward Tobias. In one leap he had unsheathed his bowie knife and had it pressed above the cravat at Tobias’s throat. “Listen here, you swine,” he snarled. “Make one more gag about the woman I love and I’ll cut you, no questions asked.”

  Tobias giggled in an odd, high voice. “Fine!” he trilled. “We’re just cool as a cucumber here. No problems, Hercules. Right, amigo?”

  “Right,” Field said uncertainly, slowly withdrawing the knife. He was continually shocking himself. In one swift action he’d professed love for Calliope and threatened to kill their solicitor! All this murder and mayhem must be turning him into a different man, although it was quite a valiant thing to protect one’s beloved. Calliope helped him ease his knife back into its sheath, ensuring his gun belt was buckled at his waist.

  “But listen.” Tobias chuckled nervously. “You’ve got to admit—you’ve got to knock off this display of animal passion! People are going to start taking notice, and you want to blend into the background.”

  “You’ll notice we’re not racing,” Rushy pointed out.

  “Yes,” Field agreed. “Because some as-yet-unknown individual jammed one of our wheels.”

  Calliope added, “Causing that murderous highwayman to get chopped to death in the buckets.”

  Field and Rushy had told Calliope and Tobias the story about the pirates. There was no other excuse for why they had steamed away from the San Francisco anchorage without a word. Tobias had concocted a story to give everyone else—something cracked about picking up a herd of cattle on Alcatraz Island. Tobias had agreed the pair of stone-dead thugs were probably just lone pirates operating on their own, but he would not question Soquel Haight about the paddlewheel because that would be to admit culpability in their demise, and knowledge of the thugs’ existence.

  “Yes, about that wheel,” said Tobias, picking up the long ceramic opium pipe and fingering it. He bent over the flame of the spirit lamp, which was still lit, and held over it a needle packed with a pea-size ball of the sticky substance. “Stanley Sitwell has been looking into that shrimpy riceman you thought you scared off your boat. I have to admit, it does look like he works for Mr. Haight.”

  Now that the ball had liquefied, Tobias could stretch the mass into a long string between the needle and the pipe bowl. Field now knew this as “cooking” the ofuyung, as Tobias would repeat it several times with the spirit lamp. “Not in a direct capacity, mind you. He’s probably paid by one of Haight’s subsidiaries, of which there is a dazzling array. But Sitwell’s partner, Sharwood Lish, saw that sneaky riceman tip-toeing off the El Dorado when you finally anchored last night. It’s likely that he jury-rigged the wheel. And we can always say he’s the one who threw the tar into the furnace, if it comes down to that.” Satisfied with his cooking, Tobias held the pipe bowl directly over the flame and inhaled deeply.

  Field and Rushy looked at each other, frowning.

  “Last night?” Calliope said. “That would mean that little riceman was aboard the entire time those pirates were holding guns to our men. And saw the whole thing.”

  Straightening, the blood drained from Tobias’s face, as though he hadn’t thought of that. Or maybe the opium was steaming his brain. “It might behoove us,” he croaked, smoke issuing from between his thin lips, “to find that riceman. Posthaste.”

  “In a jiffy,” Calliope agreed, shooting a warning glance at her men.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Calliope dared to enter the Fremont House.

  Sure, Field, Rushy, and Tobias backed her up. But she really wanted to find out if Haight had “taken care of” Brannan. She sported a glorious emerald necklace fashioned by hand in a setting of California gold. Field had given her the necklace “as a token of his esteem” and she wore it proudly, perched between her uplifted breasts as she entered the Fremont House. She swished in a new concocti
on, a frilly lilac organdy day dress edged with pink stripes, and the most cunning little bonnet. A tiny thing of purple satin, it was trimmed with artificial roses and tied under her jaw with a broad pink bow.

  She knew she wanted her former coworkers to turn to her with jealousy and envy, and it worked. They did.

  Not only was she protected by two dashingly handsome and famous men—three, if you counted Tobias, who was well-known for other reasons—but she was earning her own living without spreading her legs for smelly reprobates. Calliope walked right up to the bar and ordered a champagne, paying for it herself from her own quill of gold dust.

  Field and Rushy were instantly surrounded by a crowd of well-wishing miners, either ones who had heard about their racing skills or the shows they put on for passenger’s gratification. Calliope searched for only one person—Sam Brannan. She needed to know he would stop harassing them.

  “I heard you’re working on that El Dorado steamer now,” said Clara, her old friend. “I fucked them two fellers two weeks ago, right before you disappeared.”

  “You only fucked that one,” Calliope said with irritation, craning her head this way and that. Ah. There was Brannan, just behind the knot of congratulatory men. He narrowed his eyes at her as though wondering where he’d seen her before. She lifted one gloved hand and waved cheerfully.

  That’s when realization struck Brannan. The color drained from his hearty face and his lower jaw sagged. He raised a tentative hand in response but quickly turned tail and barreled at full chisel from the room.

  Calliope smiled smugly to herself. There. Whatever Soquel Haight had done had worked. They didn’t need to mind Brannan anymore. Now they just had to find that peewee riceman who was sneaking about rigging their boat.

  “Yes, I work with these two wonderful captains,” Calliope admitted with glee. “Ain’t they handsome dogs, though?”

  Clara shrugged apathetically. She was one of those emigrants who had become permanently disillusioned with life and would never have a hopeful or happy thought again. If she had more grit, Calliope might’ve offered to give her a job on the boat. But Clara was so draggy and impassive she would probably ruin all Calliope’s dishes with her moods and slam platters onto tables with abandon. “I probably would’ve thought so five years ago, but who cares anymore? That sandy-haired captain has a whooping big cock, though. Scared the bejesus out of me.”

  Calliope said confidentially, “Oh, it just looks like a third leg. He’s really very delicious and fun. But if I catch any of you gals having coitus with my men, I’ll stamp all your lip rouge into oblivion and rip all your corsets to shreds. Would you care for another champagne?”

  The two handsome dogs were chatting now to Clive Bixby of the Jack Hayes. Loathed rivals when on the river, captains drank freely together and shared stories when “up the hill” on land.

  “Bixby, you old card!” Rushy guffawed, his hand on Bixby’s shoulder.

  Calliope said to Clara, “Right now he’s a card. Yesterday, that captain was a good-for-nothing shit sack.”

  Clara actually smiled. “Men. They have more romancing and devilment than us gals do.”

  “I’d like to continue our conversation about the People’s Line,” Bixby was saying. “Did you inform Captain Trueworthy here about our idea?”

  Rushy nodded. “I did. He doesn’t like the idea of The Combination any more than we do.”

  Field inquired, “Is that the California Steam Navigation Company? All of those river tycoons are joining in. They’ll put us out of business unless we join.”

  Rushy said, “Not unless we form our own line.”

  “I would not advise that,” opined Tobias. “Seeing as how one of your major investors is the President of The Combination. Don’t you boneheads see what I’m saying? Conflict of interest.”

  “But Mr. Fosburgh,” Bixby interjected. “The Camanche, Belle, Cleopatra, and the Shasta are all joining The Combination.”

  “Exactly my point,” said Tobias. “Your People’s Line will just be two boats. Yours.”

  Field said, “We’ve got the skippers of the Antelope, Bragdon, Gem, and Plumas on our side. And the whole town of Marysville refuses to solicit The Combination. They might join our People’s Line.”

  Rushy added, “I heard tell a new five-hundred-ton Pearl is heading for San Francisco, and she don’t like The Combination idea much either.”

  “But the prices The Combination will be charging!” Tobias insisted. “Twelve dollars for a cabin from Stockton to San Francisco? You can’t beat that.” He huffed. “Especially if you stop your ‘entertainment.’”

  “Ooh.” Bixby elbowed Rushy. “Never stop your entertainment, gentlemen. You’d be fools to.”

  Rushy elbowed his rival back. “Oh yes? I’ll wager when next we’re in San Francisco, your runners will be blaspheming to the skies how immoral and degraded the El Dorado is.”

  A tall fellow with a neat cravat interrupted them then. He had such a meek air, one naturally assumed he was merely a businessman, and he said to Bixby, “You Captain Trueworthy?”

  Bixby was still laughing. “Nope. This fellow here.”

  The businessman tipped his hat at Field. “Captain Trueworthy? I wonder if I might have a minute. You’re the one who rebuilt the El Dorado’s engine, am I right? I’m very interested in your engineering skills. Maybe you could give me a few instructions.”

  Field, being full of himself, replied, “Are you referring to the new design for the walking beam engine?”

  “That would be the one,” the businessman said docilely. “Could we perhaps step outside? It’s awful noisy in here. I’d be ever so blessed if you could even take me down the wharf and show me the engine. That would be most instructional.”

  “Sure, sure!” Field said heartily. “Bixby? It’s been grand. See you on the river. Are you coming, Rushy?”

  “Leave Calliope here?” Rushy asked.

  “I’m in good company. Tobias is here,” said Calliope. “It doesn’t look like Brannan will be bothering us anymore. But, Field…”

  “Yes, my puss?”

  Calliope whispered into his neck, glancing from side to side at her former coworkers. “Are you sure about this fellow? After that riceman rigged our boat, are you sure it’s smart to allow this stranger to see your engine?”

  Field patted her reassuringly on the arm. “It’ll be fine, Callie. We’ll be right back here in half an hour.”

  Field had been correct in that letter he’d written to her when he thought he was going to die. His pride was getting the best of him. He just wanted to brag about his engine and be admired by this stranger who meant nothing to him. Calliope would have followed, but Clara, Aggie, and Gussie were pressing her for more champagne and peppering her with questions about working on the boat. Calliope had to buy them their champagnes before she could extricate herself, and by that time the three men were halfway to the El Dorado.

  As she skittered to catch up, she saw the two river men gamboling, carefree. The blaring November sun silhouetted the white paintwork of the boat like a sharp cameo, her men two happy little gnomes next to its bulk. When they shied off behind some stacked crates, Calliope imagined they were inspecting a shipment of oranges or something. But when a couple of flailing punching limbs appeared around the corner of the wooden boxes, Calliope broke into a sprint.

  Suddenly four thugs were beating on Field and Rushy! They all had metal pipes in their hands and were walloping the hapless river men about the head and shoulders. After his recent ordeal with the pirates, Rushy was already prone on the ground while a buffalo stomped his arm. Calliope had been in the middle of so many brawls in her time, it was instinct to shriek, “Stan! Cincinnatus! Sharwood!” before raising her skirts and whipping out her Arkansas toothpick from her garter.

  Gripping it tightly, she put every ounce of her being into the thrust. She jammed it into the kidney of the bruiser who was thrashing Rushy, jiggling it around for good measure. He instantly froze in a
splayed, dramatic manner that would have been comical in different circumstances, and she had to put the sole of one slipper against the back of his thigh to wrench her blade from where it had sank maybe four inches, nearly all the way to the hilt.

  As he collapsed on top of poor Rushy, Calliope turned her attention to Field just as he succeeded in getting his revolver from his holster. Oddly, one of the criminals was shouting at him, “This’ll teach you to steal a train engine from Mr. Hopkins!”

  Was this all about Mark Hopkins and the engine Field had been supposed to bring to him? The engine hadn’t even belonged to Hopkins. It was none of his business if Field had decided to do something different with the engine.

  The thug who was so concerned about Hopkins bashed Field over the head with his pipe while another kicked the revolver from his hand, sending Field crashing back into a wall of crates. Dozens of oranges rolled about, and the original mild-mannered brute fell on his ass, rolling on them. Men didn’t usually take women seriously, and that was the case now as the two remaining shit sacks set upon Field once more. So no one noticed when Calliope again took a powerful leap, forcefully driving her dagger into the soft tissues of a neck.

  The blood that spurted was surprising, and as the fellow reeled back in shock, Field was able to retrieve his revolver, leveling it at the head of the remaining jackleg. This time, it was he who kicked the pipe from the fellow’s hand and backed him into the stack of crates. It angered Calliope that blood trickled down the side of Field’s beautiful face, so she stamped on the testicles of the fellow who rolled on the oranges—the one she’d stabbed in the neck was already reeling down the wharf, eager to flee.

  She turned to assist Rushy, but he was already on his feet, one arm hanging at odd angles. Calliope knew it was broken. Enraged, Rushy drew back his left fist and pummeled the ruffian in the face. But Field stayed him from repeating the punch, saying, “Wait, Rushy. I want to find out what this shit sack knows.”

  “Good idea,” Calliope agreed. “Hold him up, Rushy.” The shit sack was on the verge of collapse.