The sun was already high in the spring sky at ten in the morning. It's going to be hot today, Karen Swensen thought, as she walked down the main street of Carson City, Nevada. Already, the white blouse she wore stuck to her skin, the bangs of her waist-length blonde hair pasting itself to her forehead.

Which did nothing to keep the eyes of the men from her.

She was tall and beautiful, graceful in her movement, caused by a strong athleticism covered by the clothing she wore. She was about to cross to the general store as she passed an alley. Two men grabbed her and pulled her deeper into the alley, tightening the ankle-length skirt around her legs, and covering her mouth so that any cry she might let out could not be heard.

Karen's first feeling was one of astonishment. Such things as this just didn't happen in the Nevada of the 1870's. She fought the temptation to resist, realizing that she would probably only injure herself fighting these men. Their taking her where they wished seemed inevitable. But keeping things that way depended upon her abductors' intentions. If there was rape in mind, she was prepared to die fighting them.

The alley was short and she was not carried far, just to a door near the end where she was shoved roughly through. The room was dark when the door was closed behind her and she heard the sound of the key in the lock.

Karen's eyes adjusted quickly and she looked around what she could now see to be a large room. There were several tables scattered throughout, some made at which to sit, some for standing.

There was a bar at the far end. Karen wasn't aware of the existance of one in Carson City, but she realized that she was in a casino. An empty casino. Or almost empty.

Standing behind one of the tables was a very beautiful woman, playing solitaire. She was wearing a low-cut, sleeveless dress that was incredibly colorful. There was a red sash tied around her head, its excess length falling, laying alongside her hair, which hung to the middle of her back and was jet-black. Her skin was swarthy. Her eyes were brown.

Karen realized that she was looking at a gypsy. She had seen several before, having met a tribe of them on the wagon train that had brought her West. It occurred to her that the men who had grabbed her and delivered her here had not been gypsies.

The woman had not looked up from the bar. "Did they hurt you?" The voice was heavily accented, low and husky.

"No", Karen replied, in an equally low tone.

The gypsy looked at her and smiled slightly. "Good. We have business to discuss. I do not wish to begin with medical attention."

She reached under the bar and pulled out a whiskey bottle and two glasses. She started around the gaming table toward a smaller, two-person table. Karen followed.

The woman was tall, as tall as Karen herself, and had the same full, strong figure, and narrow waist, which was more readily visible from her dress. She and Karen were exactly the same size.

Karen brushed back her hair and sat down across from the other woman, who filled the glasses with the whiskey and slid one toward Karen. The blonde picked it up and tossed it back, matching the movements of her hostess, who immediately refilled the glasses.

"I have been told that you own land. A considerable amount of land," the gypsy said. "I want to buy it."

"It's not for sale," Karen replied, sipping the whiskey this time.

"I will give you an excellent price."

Karen shook her head. "My father died settling that piece. I'm not inclined to easily give up on what he worked for."

The gypsy woman sat back and sighed, her eyes locked with Karen's. Karen felt an almost hypnotic pull from the other woman, yet refused to look away. "I am a Romany. Do you know anything about us?"

Karen nodded. "Quite a bit."

The gypsy pulled up a medallion which hung around her neck and showed it to Karen. "Do you recognize this?"

"It means that you're the queen of your tribe."

"It means that I resolve all disputes in my tribe and between my tribe and those outside."

"That is the custom," Karen replied. She began to feel a curious sense of tension and excitement.

The gypsy nodded approvingly. "You do know something of us. I chose to deal here, with you, myself, because I heard that you were a woman much like myself. In your world, men do all the negotiating. Settle the arguments."

"I don't have a man."

"I know. You know the way gypsy women settle minor disputes?"

Again Karen nodded. "I know exactly how."

The gypsy leaned forward, intensity on her face. "I can be a very good friend. Let me show you the kind of enemy I can be as well."

She put her elbow on the table and held out her right hand, waiting for Karen's. "I will teach you a lesson you will never forget."

Karen placed her hand against the gypsy's, interlocking the fingers, and felt the other woman's strength bending the fingers back, tightening, the scissoring of her fingers against her opponant's.

Karen fought back, knowing that this was the minor test of strength, something the Romany believed would let each woman feel the other's spirit.

She looked at the other woman's hand. Long, strong fingers, formerly accustomed to hard work, with long red fingernails. The hands had been softened in recent years, by creams and lotions. This woman was the queen. This was the hardest work her hands had to do now.

And it was hard. Now, the direction of their efforts was changing, as each began to slowly build up her strength, to try and force the hand of the other down to their right. This was the exact opposite of arm wrestling. In this contest, there was no leverage. Just strength, endurance, and will.

She had done this twice before. Once with the woman who taught her about it and once with the young woman on the wagon train whom she had accidentally offended. The one who had made it necessary to learn the custom.

Her teacher had been a woman in her mid-thirties, named Tamara. She, too, had been beautiful, the same height as Karen, but with a slightly larger build. They had gone together into the woods with a wide, strong board to use as a table. "It is my task to teach you to be the best that you can. Physically, you are very strong. I can see that. Hopefully, I will be able to train your spirit, despite your age. Vida, too, is young, and her eagerness for the duel shows the lack of spirit. But her mother is the queen of the tribe, our best. And she will be training your rival in the use of spirit."

They had reached a point where Tamara set up the board on two rocks. "The strength of the body is very important. But so is the strength of the spirit. A test of strength between women is meaningless without it. The spirit causes the competition. When you lock your eyes on your rival's in the beginning of the test, you should feel her desire to defeat you. When you do, it should cause your own desire to grow more intense. A circle will develop between the two of you. No one else will matter, nothing but your strength and hers, your will and hers. It becomes a love-hate affair. Her strength and spirit complete yours and you love her. Your desire to win, to prove your strength is greater will make you hate her. If the circle is proper and complete, which is perfection, neither of you will concede. The woman who wins will have to defeat the other's full strength. There are four tests. Perfectly matched women will each win two, but only after a struggle so long and even that neither is sure until the last moment who will win. They will love each other and hate each other at the same time, never knowing peace until they meet in the duel. There one woman will be killed."

Tamara knelt down on one side of the board. "This is normally done over a true table." She indicated to Karen to kneel on the other side. "As you and I do this," she had said, "if you have the true spirit for, it will take all of our will not to truly test each other. You and I are very close in physical size, and when our spirits clash, we will begin to feel the question between us. We will begin to feel the competition, then the hatred."

She offered her hand to Karen and within moments, each woman was using all of her strength. There was no sign of it, except for a slight trembling of the two hands in the middle of the table. But their eyes were locked. Karen felt the excitement, the desire of the older woman for real combat between them, and then, each felt the hatred of the other. Just as Tamara had predicted. . She felt the other woman pull away from her, pausing to take several breaths before continuing the lesson. Karen felt let down, sorry, as though something was missing. She sensed the same incompleteness in Tamara, wondering if either would ever escape it. As their eyes met again, each knew that the love-hate relationship had take full hold of them.

"I am Yolanda," the gypsy said.

"I am Karen."

The rituals were completed. All that was left now was to fight, woman to woman, where the only measure of superiority was strength. From their previous judgement of each other, and their eye contact, each knew that the other would never give up. The losing woman would have to be beaten. Breath came in short, strong gasps as each tried to get more oxygen to fuel her effort. Their hands stayed upright, centered, quivering. Each felt the sweat forming, beginning to trickle down her face and her back. At first the exertion, like all exercise, felt good. That changed quickly.

It seemed like an eon, but actually only two minutes had passed when Karen moved Yolanda's hand half an inch. Her shoulder muscles were shrieking for release from the tension, the muscles in her arm bunched, beginning to spasm, but she refused to let up. She never saw the same in Yolanda's arm, because their eye contact had never broken. Karen saw the resolve in Yolanda. There was pain there, too, but the gypsy refused to surrender. If anything, she felt Yolanda was trying even harder to make up the ground she had lost.

Slowly, though, Karen continued to gain. The two women were grunting now, each using the reserves neither would have thought she possessed. In another two minutes, Karen had Yolanda's hand a mere inch from the tabletop. Yolanda's grunts were now half-sobs, and her face was a mask of agony, just as was Karen's, who was now certain that she would never pin the other woman's hand. It took two more minutes of agony, pure determination, and pure hatred, pushing the two women beyond the efforts of the ancient Olympic athletes, before Karen could finally claim victory.

They sat there, breathing hard, eye to eye, for some time, too weak to release their grip on each other. There was hatred in each woman's eyes, but there was a respect for each other as well. Karen could see it in the gypsy's eyes. It had begun.

After two or three minutes, the women were recovered enough to open their hands and release their grips. Yolanda rose and looked at Karen for a long moment, rubbing her right hand with her left fingers.

She walked over to the bar and grabbed another bottle of whisky, returning to her seat. After a few moments, she poured two more drinks.

"I have never been beaten," Yolanda said, calmly.

Karen nodded. "I can understand that. But neither have I."

"You have done this before," Yolanda said.

"Twice," Karen replied, nodding. "There was a young woman on the wagon train that brought me out here ten years ago who believed that I had insulted her honor. We were about the same age, both hot-tempered, and both had our eye on one of the hands. And her mother was the queen of the tribe. We had an argument, said some pretty nasty things to each other, and the next thing I know, I'm being challenged to a duel."

"A duel?" Yolanda seemed surprised.

Karen nodded. "The other women, including her mother, calmed her down and she settled for a test of strength. Since I was the challenged party, I chose the test. That evening, one of the other women showed me the different tests that were customary, and we practiced. Two days later, I chose the one we just did."

Yolanda poured more whiskey, looking closely at Karen. "How did you do?"

"She was almost as strong as you are, but not quite. I won."

"But why did you engage her? You had nothing to gain."

Karen smiled weakly. "No. But I hate to lose. Besides, when we were arguing, our spirits met. We really hated each other."

Yolanda only nodded. For the rest of that day, the two new friendly enemies sat and drank together.