Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League. Jonathan Odell

entered through the back door, and Vida saw the Senator up close for the first time. His frame rose before her like a cypress trunk, dense and broad. He had one massive arm propped against a marble biscuit block while the other held out an empty whiskey glass to Lillie Dee, who took it and left the room. Other colored servants scurried in and out of the kitchen carrying silver trays of tinkling china.

      “Now, what’s so important that it can’t wait, Levi? And why you got the young’uns with you?” The Senator wiped his hand on his linen suit coat. “Hurry up, now, I got company.”

      Levi kneaded the brim of his hat with both hands. “Yessuh. I know you do. I just thought, see’n as you and me go way back. . .well, suh. . .what I gots to say. . .”

      Vida’s heart dipped down past her stomach. This was not how it was supposed to be at all! This was her father, the man whose words made people shout with joy and dance in the aisles. Who stood up to the white man. She found herself taking a step backward toward the door.

      The Senator’s face colored. “Stop beating the devil around the stump, Levi. Spit it out.”

      “Yessuh. Well, my girl here. . .well, she got something to say.”

      Vida could feel the Senator’s bleary gaze fall upon her. No words would come. The only sound was the pulsing of her blood pounding in her ears. She took yet another step backward.

      When things didn’t seem as if they could get any worse, her father’s shoulders fell like a cord of wood had been dropped on his back.

      Looking up, Vida saw that Billy Dean had stepped into the room. His eyes, as dark and cold as the iron pots that hung on the wall behind him, bored into Vida through mean little slits.

      “Go on ahead, girl,” he said. “What you got to tell the Senator?”

      Vida’s knees went soft as Nate grew impossibly heavy in her arms. She backed against the warming oven to keep from crumpling to the floor. Even though she wasn’t supposed to look a white man in the eyes, in Billy Dean’s she had seen murder.

      “Billy Dean,” the Senator said, not bothering to turn around. “I’m glad you were able to tear yourself away from Delia. She ain’t yours.” His voice was full of scorn. “You know, it’s getting hard to tell which of my daughters you got engaged to. I hope I don’t have to point Hertha out to you.”

      “Only being sociable, Senator. Don’t you worry about me none. I ain’t letting Miss Hertha out of my sights.” Then Billy Dean stepped up beside the Senator and smiled a sideways grin. He slapped the Senator on the back. “I’m a man of my word. Just like you.”

      The Senator wasn’t amused. Billy Dean quickly removed his hand and then waved his drink at the callers. “You having yourself some kind of high-level meeting back here with all these fancy-dressed niggers?”

      The Senator scowled at Billy Dean. “This here’s the colored preacher I was telling you about. You take care of ol’ Levi and he’ll tell you what the nigruhs are up to.”

      The Senator smiled fondly at the preacher. “Ain’t that right, Levi?”

      “Yessuh. That sure is right,” Levi mumbled, looking at his shoes.

      “Why do I care what the niggers are up to?” Billy Dean scoffed.

      The Senator spun toward Billy Dean. “I’ll tell you why you better care. If you going to be my sheriff, looking out for my five thousand acres, you sure as hell better know what the nigruhs and everybody else is up to. I want to know about Yankee labor agents trying to steal my tenants, and croppers lying about gin weights, and the federal government trying to agitate. That goes double for the Klan scaring off my coloreds. And I better know about trouble a day before trouble happens. You got that, Billy Dean?” The Senator kept up his glare until Billy Dean dropped his eyes. He focused instead on Levi’s chain, glowering at the praying hands.

      “Whatever you say,” Billy Dean grumbled, looking as if he had more to add but jiggling the ice in his drink instead.

      The Senator turned back to Levi. “Now, what you got to tell me about the election?”

      Vida prayed for her father to say something. He stood there motionless, bent like a willow after an ice storm. There was only silence. Finally Lillie Dee returned with a tray of fresh drinks for the Senator and Billy Dean.

      Billy Dean tossed back half his drink and wiped his mouth. He sniggered. “I bet I know what Levi wants. He wants to vote for me come the election. That right, boy?”

      Levi looked as if he had been slapped. “Nosuh!” he said quickly, the sound of alarm ringing in his voice. “Voting is the white man’s business. You won’t catch me messing with none a that.”

      “I don’t know,” Billy Dean said. “Could be I heard talk about you and that secret nigger club. What y’all call it? The Double-A-C-P?”

      The Senator looked at Billy Dean as if he were an idiot. “Levi?” He gave a sharp laugh. “Levi cares as much about voting as a horse cares about Christmas. Besides, he knows which side his bread is buttered on.” This time it was the Senator who slapped Billy Dean on the back. “Just like you, boy.”

      Billy Dean’s face reddened again, but his angry scowl was directed toward Levi.

      The inside kitchen door swung open and a plump, well-dressed white woman about the Senator’s age poked her head in. “What are you men doing in here?” she asked, holding a lacy handkerchief up to a neck whiter than the china on the countertops. “You are entertaining guests, Hugh. Did you forget?”

      When her brother didn’t answer at once, she looked carefully around a kitchen filled with tense expressions. Without speaking another word, she touched the handkerchief to her lips and eased back through the door.

      Straightening his jacket, the Senator started after his sister. “Billy Dean,” he said on his way through the door, “you find out what Levi wants. Then come tell me. Get some practice at being my sheriff.”

      Left alone in the kitchen with the preacher and his family, and his face still flushed from having been told off, Billy Dean motioned toward the back door. Through clenched teeth he said, “Let’s go outside and have us a little powwow.”

      Vida hurried Nate down the steps first. Before her father could take the first step, Billy Dean shoved Levi hard, causing him to topple down from the porch and land sprawled on the ground at Vida’s feet.

      Looking up, she saw the crazy smile on Billy Dean’s face. His eyes cut toward the boy in her arms and at last Vida found her voice. “Lillie Dee!” she screamed.

      The old cook was at the door in a flash. “Merciful Jesus! What’s going on out here? Levi, what you doing spraddled out in the dirt? You hurt yourself?” Without waiting for an answer she yelled out into the yard, “Rezel! Where you? Get here and help the Rev’rund on his feet.”

      Her boy emerged out of the dark of the yard. From his fierce expression Vida could tell Rezel had been watching the whole thing. After helping Levi up, he went to Vida’s side.

      “You and Nate all right?” he whispered.

      She nodded, thinking about begging Rezel to run away with her that very minute

      Just then the Senator’s younger daughter, Delia, the one they called “the pretty one,” joined Lillie Dee on the back porch. “Billy Dean,” she cooed, “what on earth are you-all doing out here? You were in the middle of telling me an amusing story, remember?”

      Then she saw Levi brushing himself off. “My goodness, Levi, are you all right?” She shot Billy Dean a pouty look. “What have you done to Levi?”

      “The old man fell down’s, all,” Billy Dean said gruffly. “I’ll take care of it. Everybody get on back in the house.”

      Lillie Dee did as she was told, and when Rezel hesitated, his mother ordered him inside. He reluctantly obeyed.

      Yet