Page 38 of Blowing Off Steam

The El Dorado had steamed nearly to Rio Vista before Rushy came to his senses. He was slumped on the high bench where visitors sat to look at the river, and he smelled like shit.

His hand moved to a lump on his noggin, and he recalled being bashed over the head by a revolver handle. By…who? The warm honeyed rays of the setting sun against the burnished oak of the pilothouse reminded Rushy that normally they did not head upriver this late in the day. This in turn reminded him that they shouldn’t even be going to Sacramento today at all, which in turn reminded him why Field was piloting the boat, and not him.

“Those rowdies!” Rushy yelped.

Field turned around, steering with only one hand past a sandbar. Field already knew how to line up the jackstaff on the bow with the large cottonwood on the left bank to navigate around that particular sandbar. “Rushy! Are you all right?”

Rushy looked at his bloody fingertips. “If ‘all right’ means smelling like I was just shoveling cow shit, then I guess I’m all right.” He stood unsteadily, out of habit taking the wheel. “Where’d those two rowdies go? Last thing I recall, I was trying to do a bunk through a herd of critters.”

Field released control of the wheel and brandished one of Rushy’s own handkerchiefs. As he wiped Rushy’s neck, he said fondly, “Oh, they won’t bother us anymore. How’d you run into them, anyway?”

Odd, Field had been composing a letter. Rushy could only read the most recently written part.

I must profess my undying love to you if those highwaymen catch up with us. Please believe me, my last thoughts on this earth will be of you.

Rushy knew Field had not been writing about him. “Oh, I was striking out to find Calliope, like you requested. They came out of nowhere! They insisted they were associated with…with…”

“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.”

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 lookwhen 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.”