Page 47 of Blowing Off Steam

“Am I no damned good, Calliope?” Rushy inquired.

It wasn’t heartening that Calliope had to pause before answering. “Well. Let’s just say Field is better. When it comes to that.”

Rushy tossed a lock of sandy hair from his eyes. “I’ll show you. I’m just as good as Field.”

“Ooh,” said Calliope. “I like this competition.”

“I don’t,” said Field. “You keep your damned mouth off my beloved pussy.”

“Hey!” said Calliope. “Let me speak for myself, Captain. We can share, can we not?”

“I suppose,” said Field reluctantly. “We can try.”

Rushy patted Calliope’s hand. “It doesn’t require too much effort to love you, Calliope.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Having thrown down the gauntlet, Stockton Cousins turned and walked in the rain to the landing stage.

Tobias immediately removed his wide planter’s hat and sliced the air with it. “You’d be out-and-out dough-heads to even contemplate this race! Captain Cousins’s boat is a member of The Combination.”

Rushy said, “Exactly why we should do it. We’ve got to let The Combination—and all the people of San Francisco—know that we’re not going to be beat.”

Tobias rolled his eyes. “Let’s start with a glance at reality. You two are terrible smugglers. You’ve got six corpses stuffed with opium in your hold, and you’re going to race the fastest boat on the river? Well, congratulations. You just left your son a half of a broken steam boiler. That’s all he’s going to have in his inheritance when your boat blows up.”

Field had predicted that Tobias would not take kindly to their decision to stop transporting opium. He said, “Why should the El Dorado blow up? And the Cleopatra is the second fastest boat on the river.”

Tobias moved in closer to hiss, “We still haven’t found that shrimpy riceman who rigged your wheel and, do I need to remind you, is in the employ of Soquel Haight.”

“Yes,” Calliope agreed. She had come on deck from her galley when she heard about Captain Cousins’s challenge. She held a wooden mixing spoon, brandishing it with malice. “Who is to say that peewee isn’t hiding around here somewhere, prepared to polish off more pirates?”

“Well,” said Tobias. “Your two dead pirates were just the perils of their occupation. Pirates getting murdered? It’s probably been known to happen. I wouldn’t worry about it. Has anyone come looking for them?”

“No,” said Field. “I’m glad, because I’m not a good liar.”

Tobias waved a calming hand. “If you’re dedicated enough, you can make any lie believable. I once told a woman I was Charles Dickens. It worked because I believed it.”

The three El Dorado crew members looked at Tobias blankly. Finally Field broke the silence. “Well. This is definitely our last corpse run, anyway. We just can’t stomach doing business with such a brutal thug as Haight. Look what his baboons did to Rushy! I’ll just have to rely on my El Dorado income to send my sister.”

“Making a corpse run nets you twenty times more than hauling passengers,” Tobias pointed out. “Having a conscience gets expensive. How do you propose to inform Haight you’re no longer doing business with him? He’s not going to just say ‘That’s swell, fellows. Let me send your sister all of my money anyway, because I’m such a philanthropist.’”

“We know that,” said Field. “We’re willing to take the consequences. He can’t force us to transport his product.”

Tobias looked to the hurricane deck above their heads. A soft, quiet early-winter rain had at last started to fall over San Francisco’s bay. Field was looking forward to steaming in the rain, the engine room finally relatively cool. Rushy had told him stories of rainy, lazy trips upriver, snug in the pilothouse while the little iron stove glowed warmly. “You apparently haven’t dealt much with opium kingpins. They don’t read from the same book of Mother Goose as you. Soquel Haight is as much of a criminal as those pirates who tried to steal your boat.”

“Which is why,” Field said pragmatically, “we’re going to stop doing business with him.”

“Yes,” said Calliope. “We can earn our own money, fair and square.”

“Ah!” wailed Tobias, flinging a wild arm at the bay. “You’re all crybabies! Captain Fulton, Captain Kidd, you should be kissing my ass! More like ‘Captain Crybabies,’ if you ask me. This is the way of the world. I say live it or live with it!”

“We’ll take our chances,” said Field. “I’d best get back to the engine if Cousins wants to weigh anchor at two. Send Stan Sitwell over, will you? I’ve got him keeping his eyes peeled for that peewee. I’ve got to make sure he didn’t tamper with anything mechanical.”

“There are laws, Captain Crybaby!” Tobias called as Field strode into the engine room. “Have your headmaster read them to you!”

It was evident that Tobias Fosburgh was just sweating because he didn’t want to lose his percentage of the corpse business. They would still hire him to execute the legal end of their People’s Line company. But a shred of Tobias’s harangue seeped into Field’s brain as he oiled a side lever. Live it or live with it, indeed. Why, then, was Tobias’s threatening parting image looming over him like a creature from a scary novel? His upraised warning arm brought to mind a Frankenstein mutant.

Soquel Haight’s blood would boil when they told him they were getting out of the business. Haight would get nervous that they would tell the authorities his shifty business—although who they would tell was anyone’s guess, since Samuel Brannan ran the Vigilante Society and wouldn’t care, for obvious reasons.