The young man in the scraggly army uniform piqued Nandria's curiosity. He's riding his motorcycle up to her father-in-law's farm late one evening just before the 4th of July in 1940, which could mean he knew something of her husband, Captain Will Minnick.

Captain Minnick had been on an intelligence mission in war-ravished Europe for weeks without a word from or of him reaching rural southwest Missouri.

"Sgt." Dol Lippert admitted to the gathered Boonetown neighbors that he had known Will but had not been with him for some time. Yet he seemed to know much more, including the daredevil motorcyclist who rode upside down in the steel cage at the county fair.

Marvin the Marvelous was a reluctant daredevil, plagued with debt after his brother's crippling accident. Of the children who crept under the canvas to peek, Marvin took a liking to one known as "Frog."

Nandria spent time teaching the young black children to read. However, Marvin was against her teachings. He felt uneasy about building confidence in the young kids.

But the lives of the daredevil, Nandria and her 9-month-old biracial daughter, came to depend on the rudimentary reading skill of those very children as they discover evidence of plots driven by heated anger and revenge.