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standing at the bar with Tex and Brandt, pushed his way through the crowd to confront Hawke.
    “You’re a piano player, ain’t you?” Shorty said.
    “I’m a pianist,” Hawke replied.
    Shorty looked confused for a moment, then laughed and called back over his shoulder to Tex and Brandt, “Did you hear what this here fella just said? He said he was a peein’.”
    Tex, Brandt, and several of the other cowboys from the Bar-J laughed.
    “Mister, ain’t you got sense enough to go outside whenever you got to pee?” Shorty asked Hawke.
    Again the cowboys laughed, though Hawke noticed that the regulars were beginning to get a little uneasy.
    “Now, Mr. Piano Player, if you don’t want to get on my bad side, you’ll play ‘Buffalo Gals’ just like I asked you to.”
    “I’ll tell you what,” Hawke said. “Suppose you go back over to the bar and have a drink. Tell Mr. Gary the drink is on me.” Hawke smiled. “And I’ll play ‘Buffalo Gals’ for you one more time.”
    Shorty nodded and smiled. “Well, now, maybe you’re not as dumb as I thought you was,” he said. “You know better than to get on my bad side, don’t you?”
    Hawke played “Buffalo Gals” once more. The cowboy had irritated him, but he hadn’t actually made Hawke angry. It took a lot to make him angry, and he was self-confident enough not to let the annoying prattle of some drunk get to him.
    “Hey, piano player!” Shorty shouted when the song was over. “Play ‘Buffalo Gals’!”
    “Oh, honey, do you want to listen to that song all night?” a woman asked. “Or do you want to have some real fun?”
    Looking back toward the bar, Hawke saw that Cindy had stepped in between Shorty and the piano. She was flirting with him, as was her job. And she was suggesting that they go upstairs to her room, which was also her job.
    Hawke had been working in the Hog Lot Saloon long enough now that he’d seen Cindy and all the other girls take men up to their rooms scores of times. It was not something he had ever given a second thought. And he knew that the fact that Cindy had been with him last night gave him no proprietorship over her.
    But, unexpectedly, he found the idea of her taking this obnoxious cowboy up to her room now particularly disagreeable. For just a moment he thought it was unthinking of her, particularly given that he and Shorty had had words a few minutes earlier. Then he realized that it was just the opposite. She wasn’t unthinking at all. She was offering to take him up to her room to prevent any further escalation of the argument that appeared to be developing between him and the cowboy. It was as if she were sacrificing herself for him. And, for some reason, that seemed even worse.
    Hawke was playing “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen” as he watched Cindy lead Shorty up the stairs. Just as they reached the top, Cindy looked back down toward him. The expression on her face seemed to say, Please forgive me. She had never looked at him like that with any other man she had taken up to her room. But then, it had never bothered him before.
     
    “What time did you close last night?” Betty Lou asked at breakfast the next morning.
    “Well, thankfully, most of the cowboys had a pretty rough day so they were all out of here before midnight,” Harder replied. “Bob, what time was it when you served your last drink?”
    “Just before one this morning, and that was to a local,” Bob answered from his position behind the bar. “It got real quiet after the cowboys left.”
    “Hawke, what was it with you and ‘Buffalo Gals’?” Harder asked. “Seems to me like I heard that song about twenty times.”
    “It seems that the cowboys like that song,” Hawke replied, without getting into the specifics.
    Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cindy descending the stairs. She came over to the table and looked down at him.
    “Do you mind if I join you?” she asked, her voice hesitant, almost apprehensive.
    “Hah!” Harder