Page 44 of Blowing Off Steam

“Why?” Calliope growled.

“Something about getting you in line. You’re out of line or something. You need to learn some respect and to value his patronage.”

“Well,” said Calliope. “I’ll be.”

Field snarled, “I’ll be, all right.” He jiggled the revolver in the man’s stomach. “Listen here, you half-witted baboon. Go back and tell Haight that he doesn’t own us.”

Rushy rattled the fellow by the arm. “Repeat it! He doesn’t own us!”

“He doesn’t own you,” he repeated obediently. “Now can I please go? I heard your reputation as a murderer, and I don’t want to be next.”

When Rushy shoved him, he hit the dirt like a ripe apple, just a frothing pile of limbs. Stan lingered to kick the prone fellow again for good measure, and the trio moved back toward their boat after Calliope told Stan to fetch the surgeon.

Calliope told Rushy, “I think he’s going to have to set that arm in a splint.”

“I don’t care about my arm!” Rushy railed. “What’s got me is that vain bastard Haight paying these thugs to knock us into the middle of next week.”

“And he sends four, against your two,” Calliope pointed out.

“He’s trying to warn us,” Field surmised. “He probably heard we were still racing, canoodling in public, and even smoking opium.”

Calliope said, “Yes, Lord knows what that peewee riceman told him.” She paused at the foot of the landing stage. “Field?” She blotted some blood from his face with her handkerchief. “Would it be possible for this to be your last run for Haight? Especially if you’re starting the People’s Line in competition with his Combination. Tobias is right. It’s a conflict of interest. You can’t keep making these o-fuyung corpse runs forever. Now, I know it’s your son who needs—”

Field wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “It’s all right, Calliope. I know we have to stop. I can’t be of much help to my son if I’m dead, can I?”

“That’s sure as shooting,” Rushy said fiercely. “That evil old fogy Haight. We’ll show him we won’t be shoved around.”

Calliope said, “I’ll make you men a nice Swiss cream. And Rushy, I want you in your bunk. I’ll bring you some peaches in brandy, but you have to promise you’ll stay in your bunk.”

Rushy grinned at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

Calliope frowned. “Don’t call me ‘ma’am.’ Now get on with you.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Rushy asked, “Field. Why don’t we make a couple more corpse runs? So your son is able to stay in that asylum. You got him into it, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” said Field. “I only sent the first gold a week ago. It’ll take a couple months to get a reply. I’m assuming that Cynthia will place him there once she gets the gold.”

Rushy stripped off his shirt. Indian summer was finally coming to a close, and the sandy banks off Steamboat Slough no longer radiated burning heat. The past month it had been like standing between the steamer boilers, but now it was tolerable. He was able to wiggle his bare toes without scorching them, but it was still hot enough that plunging into the slow-moving waters was an effortless, desirable thing. It would be hard to swim with his arm in that sling, so Rushy bounded into the fresh water up to his chest, where he ducked his head under.

He surfaced shaking his head, scattering rainbow-hued droplets in the lemony air. He had moored here off Eggnog Settlement on the pretext they needed to take on some crates of figs, but the dried blood covering his neck and chest due to locking horns with those criminals yesterday gave him the idea to swim.

He floated on his back a bit until Field swam over. He must have been standing on the river’s bottom, for he loomed over Rushy like a giant smiling silhouette. He tweaked Rushy’s nipple, causing him to flinch with pleasure and sputter around like a duck to get a foothold on the rocky bottom. They stood facing each other.

Rushy said, “I think we should do a few more o-fuyung runs. Even if your sister can get Benjamin into the asylum, she’ll need continuous shipments of shekels, or the jig is up.”

Field ran his hands down Rushy’s back to grasp the globes of his ass in his palms and gather him to his crotch. They were underwater up to their waists, but Field’s stiff prick jabbed between his thighs, and Rushy brought his feet together to capture the warm, throbbing appendage. If he wiggled his hips his thighs massaged Field’s cock. “You’ve gotten so brown from the sun,” Field chose to say, instead of responding. His head tilted as though he regarded a fine painting, and when he leaned in to kiss Rushy, Rushy pushed firmly on his shoulder.

“Answer me, Field. I don’t aim to let Haight run over us like fire in dry grass. Having us thrashed like that was the final straw. He ain’t the big dog of the tanyard around here. We are.”

Field squeezed Rushy’s ass and angled his hips against him. “But making more o-fuyung runs is simply playing his game. You don’t need to put yourself at risk for me, Rushy. You’re taking great risks to help out a kid you’ve never even met.”

“He’s your kid, Field. That’s all that matters. It’s mighty little of this world’s goods I’ve got. I came into this world with nothing, and I’ll leave with nothing.” He wanted to have this conversation with Field, but the gloriously handsome engineer was humping him between the thighs like a determined dog, now moving his hand between his buttocks to finger his anus. Field tickled him there, making Rushy’s cock jump, and he tried to focus on the task at hand. He shook Field by the shoulder with his one good hand. “Field. When this Combination starts up, we’ll make even less money carting passengers about, and have you stopped to think about your beloved Mr. Hopkins’s train idea? Who’ll want to take a steamer anymore if there’s a much faster train?”

Field grasped Rushy’s jaw in his hand and ran his thumb along his lower lip, saying dreamily, “My dear tadpole. The train will take years to build, if not a decade.” Then he kissed Rushy.

Field’s tongue moved sluggishly, erotically, inside Rushy’s mouth, and he sucked on it. Land’s sake, how wonderful it always felt with this potent, vigorous man in his arms. Well, his one arm, today. Lately Rushy had been daydreaming, wondering what it’d be like to actually fuck his robust partner up his slick asshole. What it would be like to ejaculate inside that heated channel, depositing his load deep inside his beloved friend while sweat dripped onto Field’s subservient back from his chest that cradled him above.