tastes were more rural. As a result of these changing dynamics, the music was now little different from the kind of music he played in the saloons.
Just west of Cheyenne, a young cowboy in chaps and silver spurs and rowels got on the train. He had a bottle with him, and Hawke was just finishing a song as he stepped into the palace car.
Hawke’s audience applauded him, and the cowboy, though he had not heard Hawke, tucked the bottle of whiskey under his arm so he could pointedly join the applause.
“Well now,” he said loudly. “Ain’t this a little bit of fancy drawers? We got us a piano player.”
“Yes, and he has been playing beautifully too,” Lulu said.
“Is that the truth? Well now, tell me Mr. Fancy Pants piano player. Is this here little lady tellin’ the truth? Have you been playing…beautifully?” He sat the word apart, mocking Lulu. “Or does this little filly have her cap set for you?”
“Sir, if you would please find a seat and be quiet so the others can enjoy the music, I will continue to play,” Hawke said as politely as he could.
“Oh, yeah, I should be quiet,” the cowboy said. Standing in the middle of the car, he turned to everyone, making an exaggerated show of putting his finger across his lips in the symbol of shushing. “All right, I’ll be quiet.”
“Thanks, I would appreciate that,” Hawke said as he turned back to the piano.
It wasn’t a second later before the cowboy spoke up again.
“Hey, piano player!” he shouted in a loud and belligerent voice. “Play ‘My Dog Is Dead.’”
Over the last several years of playing piano in saloons from Beaumont, Texas, to Denver, Colorado, Hawke had played just about every cowboy ditty ever written. But he had never heard of the song “My Dog Is Dead.”
“Sorry, I don’t know it,” he said.
Hawke moved into another song, but out of the corner of his eye he saw the cowboy move to sit next to Lulu. She moved a couple of times, but each time she did so, he moved with her.
“Hey! Piano player! Play ‘My Dog Is Dead’!” the cowboy shouted again. Laughing, he turned the bottle up to his lips and took several, Adam’s-apple bobbing swallows. Lowering the bottle, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and extended the bottle, by way of offer, to Lulu. She shook her head no.
“You sure?” he asked. “It’s not bad whiskey.”
“No, thank you,” Lulu said quietly.
Several of the others in the car made shushing sounds.
“Oh, yeah, I’m s’posed to be quiet so Mr. Fancy Pants piano player can play,” the cowboy said.
Hawke began playing.
“Hey! Piano player! Play ‘My Dog Is Dead’!” the cowboy shouted one more time.
By now the others in the car were getting fed up with him, and one of the men asked him to leave.
“I’ll leave when I damn well want to leave,” the cowboy said. “Unless there is someone in here who is man enough to make me leave.”
The cowboy’s belligerence and implied threat quieted everyone.
“Hey, ladies, you all turn your heads now and don’t peek,” he said, laughing. “’Cause ol’ Johnny is goin’ to go out on the platform and take a leak.”
“Well, I never!” one woman gasped.
“Hey, that rhymes,” Johnny said. “Did you hear that? Turn your heads and don’t peek, ’cause ol’ Johnny is goin’ to take a leak. Listen here, Mr. Fancy Pants piano player, when I come back, maybe me ’n’ you could get together and write that up as a song.”
Laughing, Johnny stepped out of the car, onto the vestibule platform.
“Ladies and gentlemen, would you please excuse me for a moment?” Hawke said just after the cowboy left. He got up from the piano and went outside behind the young cowboy. Johnny was standing on the edge, unbuttoning his pants.
“No, no, no,” Johnny said in a singsong voice. He didn’t bother to look around. “I told you ladies not to take a peak.”
“I promise not to look,” Hawke said.
“What?” Johnny replied, turning around when he heard a man’s voice.
Hawke grabbed the cowboy by his collar and belt, then tossed him over the side, pitching him far enough to make certain he cleared the cars.
“Hey, what the hell!” the cowboy yelled, though it was in Doppler effect because as the train proceeded, his voice receded.
When Hawke returned to the palace car, he was roundly applauded by everyone there. Bowing, he took his seat then played a piece by Chopin.
“That was beautiful!” Libby said. “What was it?”
“It was Waltz in D flat, Opus 64, Number 1. Sometimes called the Minute Waltz.”
“The Minute Waltz? Why do they call it that?”
Hawke chuckled. “I never have figured that out, because it takes a minute and forty-five seconds to play it.”
Those in the car laughed.
“It’s dinnertime, Mr. Hawke,” Dupree said. “Would you care to join the ladies and me this evening?”
“Thank you,” Hawke replied. “I believe I will.”
As the dining car was just one car in front of the palace car, it was a short walk to dinner. They were met by one of the stewards who, showed them to a table.
“Mr. Hawke will be joining us for dinner tonight, Adam.”
“But sir, the table will only seat four,” the black steward replied.
“You can put these two ladies at the table just across from us,” he said, pointing to Lulu and Sue.
“Very good, sir.”
The dining car was set up so that tables on one side would seat four, while on the other side the tables sat only two. Lulu and Sue were put at the table for two.
Outside the window the bare, featureless seascape that had been their vista yesterday while still in Nebraska had turned to yellow and gray foothills climbing up to red buttes, guarded by ring-tailed hawks that sailed along the walls, their sharp eyes searching for prey.
The steward returned with the menus.
The main choice tonight seemed to be between steak and salmon. Hawke and Dupree chose steak. Libby, Lulu, and Sue selected salmon.
“So, what do you think you will do when this trip is over?” Dupree asked as the steward left with their order. “Will you continue to play piano for the Union Pacific?”
“Well I—” Hawke began, but was interrupted by the conductor, who came storming into the car, his face red and twisted in rage.
“Mr. Hawke! I have been told that you threw a passenger from the train. Is this true?”
Hawke chuckled. “I wondered how long it would be before you heard about it.”
“It is no laughing matter, Mr. Hawke,” McCutcheon said with barely controlled anger.
“Look, Mr. Conductor,” Dupree said, “if Mr. Hawke hadn’t thrown that unpleasant gentleman from the train, I would have done it myself. And if not me, someone else would have. Either that or someone would have shot him. He was one of the most obnoxious people I’ve ever met.”
“Nevertheless,” McCutcheon said, addressing himself to Hawke, “you can’t just go about tossing disagreeable passengers off the train. Especially when it is moving, and especially in the middle of the desert.”
“I’ll be more careful where I throw him next time,” Hawke said.
“In addition to throwing a paying passenger from the train, you are in blatant violation of my specific orders not to fraternize with the passengers. You don’t have to worry about being more careful next time, because there won’t be a next time. Your employment with Union Pacific is hereby terminated.”
Literally spinning on his heel, McCutcheon turned and left the dining car. For a moment the five sat in silence, with the women staring at their plates in embarrassment.
“I believe you asked if I intended to stay with the railroad?” Hawke said.
“I did ask that, yes.”
