CHAPTER SEVEN VISITORS
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Visitors
Lee lay awake, watching Cora nestled up against his chest. She looked peaceful with her mouth slightly open, her back rising and falling with her short breaths. He ran his fingers, feather light, across her face avoiding her yellowing bruise.
He’d thought non-stop about what Benny had said, and as much as Lee hated it, he knew Benny was right. Before the war, Cora had hidden their relationship for nearly a year, worried about what people would say. This situation was so much worse.
Cutting into the stillness, a car rumbled up the drive, engine roaring, wheels crunching stone.
Cora jerked awake.
‘I’m right here. You’re okay.’ His arm tightened around her protectively.
It had to be Roscoe, coming to drag her away, and the white-hot anger he’d felt when he’d first seen her hurt came rushing back. She blinked away the sleepiness as she clutched at his arm. ‘Lee?’
‘I hear him. I’ve got this.’ He planted a kiss on her forehead. ‘Stay here.’
She might have to leave his bed, but not like this, plucked out of his arms in the dead of night by an abuser. Lee climbed out and pulled on his clothes as she sat up and tugged the covers over her chest. ‘I’m sorry I dragged you into the middle of this.’
He looked at her, naked in his bed, with the smell of last night’s lovemaking still lingering in the air.
Even with Roscoe outside ready to burst in and cause trouble, he felt a wave of tenderness wash over him.
‘From now on your fights are my fights.’ Whether she stayed under his roof or not.
He leaned over her and brushed his lips across hers.
The shattering crash of breaking glass from his business next door made her jump. Lee straightened, adrenaline surging, pulse flaring.
‘Son of a—’
Another crash.
He dashed out of the bedroom shouting, ‘Roscoe, if you don’t get the hell away from my windows—’
Lee stepped outside and staggered back. It wasn’t Roscoe. Two white men holding rocks and beer bottles stood in front of Green’s Whiskey. It took a few seconds for Lee to find his voice. ‘What’s this about? You all are trespassing.’
‘You Lee Peters?’
‘Who’s asking?’
‘That’s him all right. We’re gonna teach you not to go running your mouth to the papers. Get him.’
With the scrunched-up face of a drunken man concentrating, the man closest to him threw his rock at Lee.
His catcher’s instinct took over and Lee stepped in to pluck it from the air, ignoring the sting and burn in his hands as he did.
He reared back and, with the throw of a Negro League pro-player, sent the rock into the man’s chest, knocking him to the ground.
The other one dropped his rock and picked up a tire iron that lay at his feet.
He charged, aiming it at Lee’s head. Lee sidestepped the swing and used the man’s momentum to knock it out of his hand.
He turned on Lee and landed a weak punch, all arm and no follow-through.
Lee swung back and sent the man toppling.
‘Get out of here,’ Lee shouted, picking up and brandishing the fallen tire iron.
They scooted backwards away from him, clearly not fighters, not soldiers, not even athletes. When they were a good distance from him, they scrambled to their feet. ‘You’re gonna pay for this,’ one shouted as they scuttled into their truck. ‘This ain’t over.’
Lee’s head was reeling as the truck sped away, leaving a trail of dust behind. He looked at the house and saw Cora standing in the doorway, terror on her face. ‘You just beat up two white men.’
He walked to the lean-to in a daze and took her in his arms. ‘I know.’
‘What are we gonna do?’
Lee thought of his father and mother, killed for so much less. He pulled Cora in closer and felt the rapid thumping of her heart. ‘I’ll talk to Uncle Drew. See if we can come up with a plan.’
He rubbed her back, hiding the trembling of his hands.
‘Do you think we should call the police? Tell them our side?’
He pulled back to look at her to make sure he’d heard that right, because there was no way she could have meant it. She took one look at his expression and fell out laughing, setting him off laughing too, a needed release from the weighted tension.
‘Okay. Yes. That was dumb,’ she said. ‘We obviously can’t do that.’
There wasn’t a police officer in all of Florida who’d lift a finger for the likes of Lee and Cora, especially if they were accusing whites.
Going to the police was the surest way to get thrown in jail.
Their best hope was that the men would be too drunk to remember what they’d done in the morning or too embarrassed to tell anyone about it.