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Updated: June 25, 2025
Honor stopped her wild singing and shouting then, but she still sat on the floor, striking her hands softly together, her dry lips parted in a smile of utter peace. "Come, Honor, take this chair!" Carter urged her, bending over her. "I don't want a chair, Cartie," she said, gently. "I'm just waiting for Jimsy." She looked up and caught the expression on Madeline King's face.
Just think in another day perhaps in another hour, this will all be over, like a nightmare, and we'll be back to regular living again. And won't we be glad that we all stood it so decently?" It was a stiff, small smile with her cracked lips but a stout one. "You know, I'm pretty proud of all of us! And won't Stepper be proud of us? And your dad, Jimsy, and your mother, Cartie!"
"We'll pour it out into a pitcher. If there's enough to divide, we'll all have some. If there's just a little, we'll give it to Mr. King." She went away, walking a little unsteadily, putting out a hand here and there against the wall or the back of a chair, and in a moment she came back with a tall glass pitcher. "Careful, Cartie ... mustn't spill a drop...."
Once, when Jimsy was briefly away with his Yaqui henchman she asked Carter to walk with her, but he decided for the dim sala; the heat which seemed to invigorate and vitalize Jimsy left him limp and spent. He brushed her generalities roughly aside. "Are you happy, Honor?" She lifted her candid eyes to his bleak young face. "Yes, Cartie. Happier than ever before and I've been happy all my life."
"But, Cartie," she explained to him, patiently, "you know nothing is going to happen to Jimsy now, when I've just begun really to care for him!" She opened the door and stepped out on the veranda, and he followed her. "See it's almost morning!" The east was gray and there was a drowsy twittering of birds. "It's the false dawn," said Carter stubbornly.
He was deep in his bitter reflections when he realized that she was speaking to him. "Cartie, I must tell you how fine I think you are! You were splendid ... about the water ... not taking any ... when I know how you're suffering." She had to speak slowly, and if Stephen Lorimer had stood out in the hall he would never have recognized his Top Step's voice.
When he came to himself he was intensely chagrined. "I'm all right," he said impatiently, sitting up. "I wish you wouldn't bother." "Lie still for a bit," said Mrs. King. "You've had a nasty faint." Honor saw his painful flush. "Cartie, it's no wonder you fainted, I feel as if I might, any minute. And I did nearly faint once, didn't I, Mrs. King? The day I arrived here remember?"
"I'm not tired," he said shortly. He continued to stand between her and the stairs. "Well I'm sleepy," she said, moving to pass him. "Good " But Carter was quicker. He caught hold of her by her arms and held her in a tense grip. "Honor, Honor, Honor!" he said, choking. "Why, Cartie! You please " She tried to free herself. "Honor, I can't help it. I've got to speak. I've got to know.
There was less than a cupful of dark, stale water, with bits of fern fronds floating in it. "Only enough for him," said Honor, her chin quivering. "Oh, Cartie, I'm so thirsty ... so crazy thirsty...." "You must take it yourself," said Carter, sternly. "Every drop." He held the pitcher up to her. Honor hesitated.
He was nothing at all but one burning, choking thirst, one aching resentment ... Jimsy King, who had won, after all ... who had won alive or dead. Honor was silent for the most part but she was wholly serene. Sometimes she spoke and her speech was harder to hear than her happy stillness. "You know, Cartie, I can be glad it happened."
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