Page 39 of Blowing Off Steam

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 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.