“Ah, wait—wretched slut of a woman—Jesus, have mercy—oh, oh, my heart—may you roast in hell—”
The report of Teresa’s pistol had been no louder than the crack of a whip. One report, no more. When a bullet had drilled clean through a man’s heart, it was unnecessary to fire again.
Colonel Fajardo’s hands flew from his hips. They were beating the air. His mouth was slack, like that of an idiot. He blinked as if immensely bewildered. His chin fell forward. His body swayed tipsily. Teresa stood waiting, her left hand clasped to her bosom. It was the end. She had seen death come by violence to men on shipboard.
The unforeseen occurred when Colonel Fajardo, swaying and sagging, tottered backward and disappeared. He had been standing close to the edge of the wharf. His fingers clawed the empty air as he plunged downward, barely clearing the overhanging stern of the Colombian schooner.
Teresa laid hold of a piling and stared down at a patch of frothy water. Small waves ran away from it in widening circles. They lapped against the schooner’s rudder. Nothing else was visible. Presently, however, a huge black fin, triangular, sheared the surface like a blade. Another like it glistened and vanished. There was the sheen of white bellies as the greedy sharks of Cartagena harbor swirled downward into the green water.
Teresa Fernandez averted her eyes. The body of Colonel Fajardo would never be seen again. He was obliterated. She let the pistol fall through a crack between the planks of the wharf. Then she walked to the side of the cargo shed and leaned against a timber. She had pictured herself as almost instantly discovered and seized, the body of Colonel Fajardo lying upon the wharf. For this she had prepared herself. She had been willing to pay the price.
Now she realized that her deed was undiscovered. The isolation was unbroken. The harsh commotion of the ship’s winches, the rattle of the freight cars as the switching engine bumped them about, the yells of the Colombian stevedores, had made the whip-like report of the pistol inaudible. And the whole thing had been so quickly done. Perhaps two or three minutes she had stood there and talked with Colonel Fajardo.
A revulsion of feeling shook the soul of Teresa Fernandez. Why should she suffer bitter shame and die in expiation of a righteous act? It was no crime in her sight. She had administered justice because otherwise it would have been forever thwarted. And, in the last resort, had she not fired the little pistol in self-defense? These thoughts raced through her brain during the moments while she leaned against the timber of the cargo shed.
She mustered strength. Her knees ceased trembling. A hint of color returned to her olive cheek. Her lips were not so bloodless. Head erect, she walked along the narrow strip of wharf, but not to pass around the outer end of the shed. Instead of this, she sought the shoreward exit through the high wooden barrier. The gate was fastened, she found, but another way of escape led through an empty room in which baggage was sometimes stored for examination. She passed through this room and emerged on the railroad tracks.
Between two freight cars she made her way and so to the custom-house gate and the main entrance from the open square beyond. In a shady spot squatted an Indian woman with beaded bags displayed on her lap. Another drowsed beside a pile of grass baskets. Teresa paused to buy two beaded bags and a basket.