She was going to have to wear skirts now, every day; for whatever else they did, the Daniels's always kept their word. She sighed heavily and stared up into the crochet-work again, wondering how she would manage to clamor down the rocky ravine to the still in skirts, when the old uncles sent for her. The thought of being cumbered and weighed down by those layers and layers of itchy homespun was depressing indeed. Still, she'd managed to dilute her womanly confinement, to restrict it to the evening hours for the time being.

The look on her aunt Kate's face when she realized she'd been drawn into "dealing" again had been purely priceless. Poor Aunt Kate; she never quite seemed prepared for the verbal slights of hand that came as easily as breathing to Whitney and her pa. In the dimness, Whitney's mouth drew into a fetching, moon-sly grin. At least that hadn't changed.

The realization swept over Whitney like a lifegiving tide. Her gift of gab, her unerring instinct for striking a bargain... that was still intact, that hadn't changed. She fairly melted into the feather bed with relief. She was still Blackstone Daniels's smooth-dealing, easy-talking protege... even if she did have to put up with the uncertainties of womanhood and the indignity of skirts!

Chapter Four.

The next morning dawned bright, edged with lacy frost that soon melted into a cool, dewy blanket. Whitney was up and about at first light, wearing her precious boots and breeches while feeding and milking and starting the morning fire. Her mood was determined and her step was light, belying the troubled night she'd spent.

The night-witched darkness and quiet of her bed had conjured harrowing images in her mind of confrontations between the valley folk and federal soldiers. But her anxieties condensed and focused alarmingly on the image of one soldier in particular. Dark hair with curls... she remembered that much. And she recalled lips that were bold and intriguingly curved, rimmed with distinctive borders. Strange that she should recall his mouth so well...

When she closed her eyes, the press of the heavy quilts against her shift had felt strange in a way that she knew had to do with the unholy sensations she had suffered while pinned beneath him. She rolled onto her side, then flopped around a bit in an attempt to dislodge those disturbing feelings. But it was some time before she had succeeded in banishing them and managed finally to wrest some sleep from the echoes of womanly awakening that had filled the hollow night.

Midmorning, as the biweekly wash was in progress in the rear yard, there was a flurry of dust and thudding bare feet up the cart path toward the house. Both Whitney and her aunt Kate paused over the huge black wash kettle to see ten-year-old Robbie Dedham churning knees and elbows toward them at a dead run. They exchanged surprised looks and hurried to meet him, wiping wet hands on apron and breeches.

"Wh-Whit-" he gasped when she caught him in her arms. He slumped against her, heaving and gulping for air. It was obvious he'd run the entire mile and a half from his pa's tavern in the little settlement at the crux of the valley.

"What is it, Robbie? What's happened?" Alarm shot up Whitney's spine, and before he could regain the power of speech, she had a horrible feeling she already knew what the first words out of his mouth would be.

"S-s-sol-diers! Lots-" He gulped and, realizing he was held in a female embrace, wriggled and shoved until he stood independently on his own feet again. "They got the tavern all hemmed in, Whit! They's a boodle of 'em! They's moved right in... goin' through Pa's kegs fer th' cer-tifikates an' marks-" It all came blurting out as he shoved his damp hair back from his red face with a grimy little hand. "Didn' find nothin', tho. Pa snuck me out... sent me to fetch you-"

"Soldiers?" Kate met Whitney's gaze, paling, clearly alarmed by the news.

Several different reactions registered on Whitney's clear, oval face, but none of them was even close to surprise. Indignation, pride, determination; all were some part of the heat that rose up in her and made the golden flecks in her eyes glow like sparks. But there was something else rising within her too... a bit of dread. A dark head and overpowering body flashed an involuntary response through her blood, undercutting her first urge to confront the federal menace.

The realization stung. Never before had she let a man, whether uncle or buck, keep her from doing what she had to do. And she certainly couldn't let one humiliating encounter with a soldier interfere with her call to duty now. She'd undoubtedly encounter him again sometime... better to do it head-on. The sparks in her eyes merged into a decisive glint and she started for the path at a brisk clip.

"Whitney? Where are you going?" Kate would have gone after her, but the sound of water sizzling in fire brought her up short. She whirled to find the huge black kettle of clothes and water boiling over furiously, and jolted back to her chore, reaching for the wooden clothes-paddle. "Don't you do anything, Whitney...!"

But Whitney's mind was as set as her shoulders. Her hands balled into fists as she stretched her booted legs to cover ground along the cart path out to the main road along Little Bear Creek. She was headed for the tiny settlement of Rapture. She was going to see this federal menace for herself... to find its leader and serve notice that they'd get nothing out of the folk of Rapture Valley. No taxes, no whiskey... and no stills!

Most of Rapture's people lived on farmsteads bordering the rich little stream that flowed through the center of the valley. But a few who plied necessary trades had collected at a convenient wide bend in the creek to establish a settlement of sorts. Uncle Harvey Dedham ran a trading post and tavern, which served as the social and commercial hub of the valley; Uncle Sam Durant did a bit of grain milling with a bit of 'lumbering and carpentry work on the side; and lean, stringy Uncle Radnor Dennis ran a forge, and doubled as local barber and surgeon. There were a few other cabins, belonging mostly to widows who'd been left with broods of children, and had had to move into the settlement for protection. They found sustenance in Rapture's tightly knit community by bartering their sundry homesteading skills for the necessities of life, while they cast about for another suitable marriage bargain.

Just now, with several of the valley men off at the "meet" with Black Daniels, Rapture boasted a true rarity in frontier life; a populace that held a slight female majority. And it was into that defenseless community that breeches-clad Whitney Daniels strode, determined to help balance the scales of gender... and power.

"Whit-ney!" Someone called her name from down a familiar cart path to the left of the road. By the time she paused and turned, she recognized the voice as well as the plump, graying form hurtling toward her in a flurry of dust and young, unshod feet.

"Aunt Sarah!" Whitney scowled, watching Charlie Dunbar's mother hurrying down the path with three of Charlie's younger brothers scrambling around her.

"Whit-!" Aunt Sarah huffed, holding her hands to her heart, and stumbling to a halt in Whitney's arms. "Whit! They gots my Charlie-"

"Who gots-" Whitney frowned and thrust Aunt Sarah's round form back gently and dipped in order to see her face. The anguish there enabled her to make the dread connection. "The soldiers? They got Charlie?"

Sarah Dunbar nodded, frantically trying to recover her voice, and then to be heard above the babble of her offspring. "He didn' come home last night. I wondert... but, 'cause he wus with you last, I didn' worry none. Figgered you two must'ave struck a bargain-"

Whitney flamed and turned her troubled green gaze aside, listening to Charlie's mother with one ear and to her own thoughts with the other. Noah's blessed knees! She'd forgotten all about Charlie-or about her last glimpse of Charlie-thrashing and bashing against gun-wielding federal soldiers! Her own fate and its disturbing aftermath had completely driven it from her mind. But then, Charlie was so big and strong-and she had been so angry with him-it never occurred to her to be worried about his safety.

"Harvey Dedham sent word... just a bit ago-" Aunt Sarah's round face began to pucker, and a sob caught in her throat as she finished. Her soulful brown eyes were tear-filled wells of misery, and her chin quivered like a scolded child's. There wasn't a body alive who could match Aunt Sarah Dunbar for sheer, gut-wrenching pathos. "Them sol-jurs got 'im." She clutched Whitney's hands desperately as the tears began to roll. "Whit- they got 'im in chains!"

"Chains?!" Whitney drew the word in on a breath. "Charlie in chains?"

"Oh, Whit, ye gotta do somethin', please!" Sarah wailed. "Charlie-he's all I got since my Earl passed away back last June."

The injustice of it shot a blast of angry heat through Whitney's blood. The federals took their precious liquid currency, took their means of making more, and took their very land when they didn't have anything else left to take. And now they stooped to taking poor widows' sons away from them! Charlie in chains-it was just too much!

She straightened as she stared at Aunt Sarah's pleading look and thought of Uncle Harvey Dedham's desperate summons. They were looking to her for help. In a pinch, they always turned to Black Daniels... Black always seemed to know what to do. Now in Black's absence, they turned to his unusual daughter to see them through. She raised her chin and squared her broad shoulders as the weight of their trust settled on her. These were her people, her family, her valley. She wouldn't let them down.

"Come on, Aunt Sarah."

The residents of Rapture Valley's little settlement saw her coming from the slits in their oilskin-covered windows and heaved audible sighs of relief. Just seeing Whitney Daniels striding their way was tantamount to watching the biblical David picking up stones. They could tell from the set of her stride and the gleam in her eyes that she was dead-set on a course straight for their Goliath.

Dedham's tavern was set between the smithy and the mill on one end of an oval forest clearing that extended along the banks of Little Bear Creek. Its two story log and stone structure towered over the other cabins, visually underscoring the tavern's place as the center of the community. The second story housed the burgeoning Dedham family and provided two sleeping rooms for hire, for whenever outsiders ventured into Rapture Valley. The first floor, with its thick stone walls, puncheon floor, and huge, friendly hearth, was part tavern, part village hall, and part trading floor for the brisk business of barter that sustained the valley. Apparently, the soldiers had been clever enough to recognize the strategic importance of Dedham's tavern in Rapture Valley, and had seized it straight away.

She slowed as she traversed the hard-packed dirt of the clearing. At her back she could feel and hear the gathering of bodies. Rotund Aunt Sarah and Charlie's little brothers bustled along behind her, joined by Uncle Radnor and his three oldest children, ancient Uncle Ferrel Dobson, the widow Freida Delbarton and her brood of strapping young bucks, who never seemed to be far from the voluptuous widow, May Donner. Each time a curtain twitched or an oilskin dropped back into place, more bodies emerged from the cabins and added to their number.

Halfway across the clearing, she paused and set her hands to her waist, scrutinizing the men tromping purposefully back and forth outside the tavern. They shouldered wicked-looking muskets and wore rumpled blue coats and broad-brimmed hats that were pulled down tightly over grizzled and sullen-looking faces. Whitney frowned as she studied them. Somehow, they weren't quite what she had expected. Where were the radiant blue uniforms and all the flashy gold braid?

Behind the tavern, an encampment was visible in the grassy clearing leading down to the river. Whispers and clucks and murmurs of indignant agreement rose as her folk peered at her thoughtful expression then followed the trail of her gaze to the outpost of federal tax enforcement. When she crossed her arms, narrowed her eyes, and stalked ten paces to the right for a better view, they lowered their brows, crossed their arms, and followed along. The enclave of federal oppression proved to be a field of blotchy canvas tents clustered around several campfires that still wheezed green-wood smoke from the morning's cooking. Here and there guards could be seen at the edges of the clearing, cradling guns and nursing fierce scowls.

She'd seen all she needed to see. It was every bit as bad as she'd feared it would be. She took a deep, steadying breath, stuck her thumbs in her belt, and headed for the front door of the tavern with her Daniels audacity firmly in place. As they neared the patrolling knots of soldiers, her following began to straggle and dwindle in her wake, spreading itself into a wary phalanx across the clearing behind her. If an explosion occurred, their uneasy glances said to each other, it wouldn't do to be too close.

Five paces from the open tavern door, a grizzled form bearing dirty gold stripes on its sleeve suddenly inserted itself into her path, blocking the way. She jerked to a halt just in time to keep from crashing, nose-first, into a pair of calloused hands that held a musket at a martial slant across a burly wall of a chest. Her eyes climbed that steely barrel to a weathered snarl set below two dull-glowing coals of eyes and she had to fight a constriction in her throat.

"Jus' whar do ye think yer goin'?" came a low growl that sounded like river gravel grinding underfoot. The big fellow's bristled jaw didn't move when he spoke, and his thick torso seemed to swell before her very eyes.

"Just... into the tavern." Whitney managed to distance herself a few inches while giving the appearance of just straightening. Then she took a deliberate half-step back, put her weight on one leg and her hands on her waist, a stance that all of Rapture's inhabitants recognized as being part of the Daniels's repertoire of "dealin'" postures.

"A body's still entitled to wet his whistle, isn't he? I mean, there isn't anything in the Act that prevents a fellow from takin' a nip in a decent, law-abidin' public house, is there?" She forced her chin upward at a defiant angle, but found her cheeks heating as the big soldier looked her up and down with a brash, knowing curl to his mouth.

"Ye don' look like any 'feller' I ever seen."

"Trust me," Whitney shot back, summoning all her native sense of authority, "you haven't seen anything yet. Who's in charge here, sir? I want to see him... now."

"Weeell," Sergeant Laxault drawled in his dredgelike voice, "that be the majur, I reckon-"

"The major. . . Fine. I want to see him."

A wrangle of raised voices suddenly rolled through the wide tavern door. Whitney reacted to the noise with a startle, and the sergeant braced and tightened his grip on his musket. She feinted one direction, then ducked deftly around him the other way and made it to the doorway before she realized the voices were coming her way and stopped halfway in. In the dim, musky interior, she could make out diminutive Uncle Harvey over near the bar, nose to nose with a hulking blue-clad figure. They were arguing, fingers stabbing, arms flailing, and every valiant sidestep Uncle Harvey made toward the door was matched by tall, determined boots. Alarm shot through her as the wide, blue shoulders towering over Uncle Harvey flexed irritably and she glimpsed the unmistakable glint of gold. She squinted, forcing her eyes to speed their adjustment from the brightness outside, and dread rose in her at the sight of elegant gold braid and loosely curled dark hair...

"-nothin' in yer cursed Act what says I gotta feed fed'ral troops!" Uncle Harvey's genial round face was purpled and puffed like a boiled beet, and his neck had all but disappeared into his shirt collar.

"I have written authorization-the military order of the President of the United States-to requisition foodstuffs and ration stores," the tall soldier thrust a document he was holding by a death-grip into Harvey's face, "-and by God, you'll surrender them up or I'll see you clapped in irons!" His deep, rolling storm of a voice sent a cold rain of recognition lashing over Whitney.

"I don't got to do anythin' of the kind! Just you wait'll-" Uncle Harvey caught a glimpse of Whitney in the doorway, jerked away from the confrontation, and turned to her with angry relief. "Gal! Thank God yer here!"

Whitney could see Uncle Harvey's mouth working, and she heard the rumble of his hot complaints. But the sense of his words was utterly lost to her. The soldier had turned on her, his fists clenched, his tall, broad-shouldered frame coiled, vibrating with unspent ire.

Whitney stiffened, finding herself unexpectedly face to face with her pursuer of the day before, and scrambling to regain her equilibrium. Everything about him assaulted her senses at once, demanded comparison with paling memory. Those soft, wavelike curls, those broad shoulders with their gleaming gold braid... he was so tall, so big, standing up. She'd never imagined...

In the charged silence, she could see his face tightening, his feathery brows lowering, his bold, memorable mouth lifting contemptuously at one corner.

"You!" His gray-blue eyes became steely as they dropped pointedly to her shirtfront, then drifted lower to her narrow waist and the graceful flare of her hips. His straight, finely chiseled nose curled in derision as he boldly retraced that visual path upward in a way that made Whitney feel heat rising in her body with it.

"You!" she countered, her face flaming with the turmoil his insolent visual inspection created in her. A heartbeat later, she squelched her chagrin, and, along with it, all dread of consequences from the devastating self-defense maneuver she had performed the day before. After all, she hadn't done anything wrong... just defended herself... in the most effective manner possible. One look at his powerful bearing and she knew the arrogant churl probably hadn't divulged the disastrous outcome of their encounter or revealed the nature of his "injury." What could he possibly do to her here, in front of half of Rapture and all these soldiers?

"I might have known I'd find you here, haranguing and oppressing decent, honest folk."

"You tell him, gal." Uncle Harvey scowled, a bit confused by the flash of recognition between them. "Tell 'im I ain't got to lodge anybody I don't want to. And I ain't got to 'sell' nobody food I don't want to."

"I'll go one better, Uncle Harvey." She lifted a defiant half-smile to the innkeeper and, while her gaze fixed meaningfully on her erstwhile abuser, she strode into the tavern with a swagger. The door behind her filled with curious heads. "I'll tell it to his commander ... the major. That and a few other things..."

The tall, dark rogue stalked one step closer, with a vengeful smile transforming his cleanly bronzed features into an unpleasant blend of raw command and refined hauteur. He sent a lean, graceful hand to tap the gold braid on his collar and shoulder and when he spoke, his cultured tones drove straight into Whitney's middle.

"I am the major."

Years of training in the emotional slight-of-hand that successful bartering required were all that saved her from a humiliating display of surprise and dismay. His bold declaration rumbled through her, rattling her confidence in ways she wasn't prepared to combat. He was the major? He was in charge? She held her breath even as she held her ground, and the only outward sign of her inner turmoil was the narrowing of her glowing green eyes.

"Major Townsend... of the Boston Toumsends," he wielded the announcement like it was a sickle meant to reap a harvest of awe... or obedience. "Attached to the Ninth Maryland Militia." He said the last word as though it fouled his mouth. And his display of distaste shortly broadened. "I've been sent into this godforsaken hollow to uncover and destroy all illegal liquor operations... and to arrest those participating in this treasonous trade at all levels. And I intend to do exactly that."

The pronouncement produced a wave of murmuring from the heads crowded into the doorway as his gaze swung pointedly to Uncle Harvey. "Failure to cooperate with my lawfully constituted authority may rightly be seen as abetting this whiskey insurrection, and dealt with severely."

"I paid my tax," Uncle Harvey colored and drew his neck in defensively. "I got the certifikates fer the marks on m'barrels. You seen 'em with yer own eyes."

"Suspicious certificates," the major charged nastily, "more than a year old. I don't believe for a minute you haven't even sold off one whole barrel of that hell-broth in the past year. Good God-" he cast a sneering glance about him, "dead-drunk is the only way this pest hole could possibly be endured for that long." He set his lean, long-fingered hands at his gentlemanly waist and thrust his shoulders forward to drive home his point: "My men need food, Dedham, and I'll have food and liquor rations for them... and I'll have them now. Or you'll have serious trouble on your hands."

"You can't come marchin' in here, pillagin' and plunderin' honest folk, takin' what little means we got!"

"It's not plundering-it's commerce, pure and simple. I've said you'll receive notes redeemable in hard coin at the army paymasters' in Pittsburgh. You'll be paid full well in U.S. currency for the swill you serve."

"Currency?" Whitney pulled her chin back with an incredulous look at Uncle Harvey. "He wants to give you cash money for food and whiskey?"

"I've told the fool so, several times," Townsend snorted contemptuously and settled back on one leg,feeling thoroughly vindicated by his civil offer, and grudgingly glad he'd restrained his impulse to lay hands on her the instant he'd laid eyes on her again. Restraint was a well-known Townsend virtue.

"Well, if that's not the silliest thing I ever heard," she murmured, staring at Uncle Harvey and shaking her head in sheer disbelief. The initial shock of seeing her "soldier" again, of learning he was the one in command of the federal force, and of feeling those overpowering waves of sensation he generated in her, was abating. Some of her inner control was returning, and close on its heels came her cat-quick Daniels cunning.

"See there, Dedham?" he sneered, savoring the irony of her championing his logic. "The voice of reason."

"Money for food?" She laughed softly, realizing the major had taken her comments for support of his arrogant demands. Her coolly derisive gaze swung from Uncle Harvey to the tall, gentlemanly major. He was so arrogantly "eastern" and highhanded it was a wonder to behold. Money for food! Only an easterner would stoop to such dealings. There was something purely indecent about the very idea!

"Now what would Uncle Harvey here want with money?" she asked in a voice still husky with amusement. "He can't eat it nor wear it, can't plow or plant with it... and it surely won't keep him dry."

Townsend twitched as if stung, and heated furiously at the scarcely-cloaked insolence in her memorable eyes... the same damned half-cat orbs he'd seen over and over last night as he tossed and turned on a damp bed of rocks and grass-stubble...

"In Rapture," she said, taking advantage of his speechless ire to continue with a knowing half-smile, "a man trades honest sweat for his bread. Just like the Almightly decreed he should: 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread'-the book of Genesis. Whether he puts his sweat into the soil itself or trades the fruits of it to his neighbor, a fellow earns his bread by it in Rapture Valley. We've got no use for money. Whatever else is needful is procured by good, honest trading."

"Barter." The major's nostrils flared and his lips curled as though that word soiled them, too.

"Exactly." Whitney broke into a devilish crook of a smile. "If you need food then you need to work at strikin' the proper bargain, Major." There was a hot bit of mischief in her eyes as they flitted over his elegant, manly form with the same raw evaluation that he had turned on her moments before. So the jack-a-dandy major didn't like the idea of having to bargain honestly for his food... thought bartering was beneath him, did he?

"Well now, Major," she leaned back on one leg and set her hands at her waist in a taunting parody of his arrogant stance. "The harvest has been dismal and dismayin' this year... food is purely scarce all around. Isn't that right, Uncle Harvey?" Harvey's jaw loosened, then shut as he caught that familiar look in Whitney's eye.

"Ohhhh, dismal an' dismayin'," he echoed, nodding earnestly.

"Food and whiskey ration for all those hungry men..." Whitney shook her head with mock gravity, "it'd purely deplete Uncle Harvey's already beset and beleaguered winter stores. Isn't that right, Uncle Harvey?"

"Bee-leegered an' bee-set," Uncle Harvey nodded again, wide eyed.

"So you'd just as well put your paper promises back in your pocket, Major, and do a bit of honest tradin' instead." She looked his rigid frame up and down pointedly. He looked like a man just itchin' for a lesson in bargaining. "Now, what have you got to trade that's worth the great hardship you're looking to inflict upon Uncle Harvey, here?"

That drew muffled snickers from the heads that filled the doorway, including some belonging to blue-clad shoulders. Red was seeping up Major Townsend's neck and his skin and jaw tightened the way a man's does when he's feeling twinges of pain. He shot a burning glare at her, then at their leering audience.

"That's enough-"

"Horses?" Whitney was just settling into stride and growing rather fond of her game. "You could use a few good horses, couldn't you, Uncle. Harv-?"

"No horses, dammit!" he snarled, his face now scarlet, his hands slamming down his sides where they fell into fists.

"From what I seen, they only gots two," Harvey offered.

"Two horses?" Whitney's exaggerated disbelief struck the major in a very vulnerable place.

"We're infantry, dammit, not bloody dragoons!" he stalked toward her, his wide shoulders like a moving wall, his face a bronzed, irritable mask.

"No horses? Oh, that's a pity." Whitney's green eyes widened as he advanced, and she began to retreat toward the door at the same deliberate pace. She had him riled now, right where she wanted him. It was an established fact that a fellow couldn't think nor bargain worth piddle when he was all wrought up and furious.

"Well, then, what else do you have? Blankets? You could use some good, tight-woven blankets, right, Uncle Harvey?"

"Uh-blankets. Sure-" Uncle Harvey nodded, watching the major growing inside his coat, hardening as he closed in on Whitney.

"No bloody blankets!" the major snarled, backing her right into those curious heads in the doorway, scattering them back into the clearing.

He backed her straight out the door, into the bright sunlight and into the plain sight of Rapture's collected citizenry and his own puzzled and glowering men. This part of Maryland's rough and sometimes disreputable Ninth Militia had never seen their gentleman commander show anything more than cool disdain, no matter what the provocation. They melted back, glued to the sight of his rising passions. A path into the clearing opened amongst the crowd as the major forced Whitney back, hulking over her, burning with impotent urges to bash and thrash.

"No blankets either? How about boots?" From the corner of her eye, she saw the sly grins on her people's faces and the lurid curiosity on the soldiers'. Both contingents hurried alongside to watch, just as Whitney hoped they would. Her eyes danced wickedly down his braced and combative form to his long, muscular legs. "Lord, you do have purely splendid boots, Major. The finest I've ever seen-" a wave of jocular agreement greeted her judgment, "but I'm not sure they'd feed a whole regiment."

"Dammit-" the major was quivering with raging heat and that was the only word he could seem to summon!

"No boots?" A taunting little grin escaped to tug at the corners of her mouth in spite of her.

"No!" he roared, relieved to find at least one other syllable within his command.

"Well, it doesn't appear you've got much anybody'd want, Major." She came to a dead stop, beaming all the infuriating innocence of a beguiling Daniels smile. The hidden meaning in her assessment was meant to push him over the edge. It did.