Page 49 of Blowing Off Steam

He kissed her then, a wave of tenderness and love bringing tears to his eyes. Was it possible to feel more strongly for another person? Field realized he’d been waiting eight years—since his wife had died—to feel this passion for a woman again. He threaded his fingers into the silken blonde hair at the nape of her neck as she sighed into his kiss, clutching him almost with desperation.

“I like pie better,” it sounded as though Maurice said, and they broke apart to see him staring at the mincemeat pies Chiao Kuo was putting into the oven.

Calliope giggled and held her hand out to view the ring. “But what about Rushy, my dear fiancé? I don’t think he’ll take kindly to this. He does adore you so.”

“As he adores you. I don’t see why it would change anything with Rushy. Don’t you enjoy our…diversions?” Field was struck clean to the heart at the sudden realization that Calliope might not want to continue canoodling with Rushy. He hadn’t thought about that. She might want to suddenly become prim and ladylike, a woman of society. She might not want to stand idly by while her husband fell to his knees and licked another man’s penis. He could understand that, but the idea of never humping his partner again just struck the fear of God into Field.

Calliope laid her jeweled hand on his chest. “Of course I enjoy our diversions, my possum. I’m very eager to participate since it’s only us. The three of us. I don’t want Rushy to feel left out.”

“Nor do I!” Field cried with relief. “Rushy won’t mind us wedding, as long as he can continue sticking his wick into the pot.”

Calliope’s laugh was sheer loveliness. Field was enraptured by her honesty, her plain and simple enjoyment of the simple things in life.

He gathered her up to kiss her again but was distracted by an odd sound. The constant, rhythmic sssoo haah, sssoo haah of the engine seemed…off. Pricking up his ears like a rabbit, Field stood at attention, his eyes fixed on the galley ceiling. The steam emitted from the escape pipes situated just fore of the calliope organ didn’t sound right, either.

“That doesn’t sound right,” Field said ominously.

Calliope immediately knew what he meant. “The engine? Go and check it.”

Field did so after squeezing her hands reassuringly.

And what he discovered nearly made his heart stop.

Stan Sitwell was nowhere to be seen. Nobody levered the bars or checked the steam gauge. Field raced over and saw it alarmingly showing sixty-five pounds of pressure, when he knew only a few minutes before, when he’d left, it had been carrying only forty-eight.

“Stan! Stan! Sharwood!” Field bellowed pointlessly for his fellow engineers. He was reaching for the speaking trumpet to shout something at Rushy—what, he wasn’t sure. Maybe warn him that his boat was fixed to explode. But as he did so, he took note of some activity up above, fifteen feet overhead.

That little riceman balanced on a water pipe that fed into the boiler. And he had his hand around a valve that allowed cold water into the big, broiling tank.

“No!” Field roared. He grabbed a few heavy bolts, wedged them in his pocket, and instantly leaped onto a transfer pipe, knowing he’d burn his hands. He could not have shot at the riceman, for a wild shot or ricocheting ball would create an immediate inferno. Instead he clung to a steaming pipe and tossed the bolts overhand at the riceman. “What are you trying to do?” he shrieked. “Why are you trying to blow us all to smithereens?

“I stop your race!” it sounded as though the peewee squealed, right before a bolt bashed him in the temple and his eyes rolled up into his head. For a brief second, he resembled the stuffed lemur Field had once seen in a museum, clinging to the pipe with all his limbs curled under. He even fell like a monkey, his grasping hands the last to admit defeat before they finally went limp, and he tumbled to the deck with a thud like a bag of flour.

All the while, the attention bell was furiously ringing, the cord pulled by Rushy in the pilothouse, telling Field to come to the speaking tube. No doubt he was wondering, too, why the engine sounded so off.

Field had a choice—either deal immediately with the tiny man, or climb up there and close the valve himself. The gauge now read sixty-eight pounds, so after swinging back to the deck and stomping on the riceman’s upper arm, he leaped into the brass work. He was so accustomed to climbing about there like a monkey himself, he was able to close the valve in a flash. But when he went to scramble back to the deck, the peewee had awakened.

That Celestial thug was greased lightning. He stood upright gripping an oar with which he held down the safety valve. The boilers could stand this no more and Field took a flying leap, tackling the little man to the deck. The oar went sliding across the deck, and Field punched the fellow time and again in the head. Satisfying, resounding punches that alleviated some of his anger.

But he had no time for this. With his arm through the back of the riceman’s high-collared coat as though he slung an enormous muff, Field strode with his baggage out the door and to the rail. He propped the flailing fellow on the rail and demanded, “Why are you endangering your boss’s cargo? Why would he send you here to blow up a boat that has thousands of dollars worth of opium aboard? Why—”

The boiler blew then.

Later on, Field wasn’t sure if he’d actually tossed the Chinese man overboard or if the force of the explosion had propelled the peewee. But the man was actually suspended in midair for a fraction of a second, a shocked face of horror glued to his features, before he was blown away horizontally toward shore.

Followed by Field himself.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Although Field had not come to the speaking tube, Rushy continued bellowing into it.

“Field! Field! Attention! Attention!”

Something was grossly wrong. After so many years piloting steamers, Rushy could sense when the pressure was off. Failing to raise Field on the speaking tube, which rankled Rushy even further, he stuck his head out the pilothouse window and shouted at some passengers near the texas to find either Rushy, Cincinnatus, or Stan Sitwell. He tried to inject levity into his voice so as not to alarm anyone.

Standing at the wheel again, he rubbed his head in frustration. “I should’ve made it sound like I wanted to fuck,” he fumed. “That would’ve lit a fire under their heels. Get the whole damned boat up here to watch. Jesus H. Criminy. Racing and fucking at the same time. What’ve I made of my life? This life is scaring me pretty nigh into fits. I didn’t calculate this whole risky affair. I just wanted a gal from the settlements! Someone to love me the way I am. And where’s my damned kids? I’m giving all my money to Field’s kid. He’s right. I’ve never met him. I want my own kids. Calliope would make a fine mama. Does she want kids, I wonder?”

He was babbling on in this manner when the engine blew.