Your families haven't spoken since 1976. Now you share one show, one barge, and a shell someone cut.
You are your family firm's head shooter, and you load every shell yourself. At the first joint rehearsal for your town's 200th, one shell has a cut fuse. The rival you share the show with says you cut it.
Dusk on the show barge at Cape Lisette. River heat on your neck, black powder grit on your fingers.
You packed and locked this crate at six this morning. Now one shell's fuse is cut short.
Nash Kimbrough, the rival on the next rack, says you cut it yourself to blame a Kimbrough. Your families haven't spoken since 1976.
The mayor and the state inspector are walking down to sign off. One bad shell ends both firms.
Head shooter for Haddix Fireworks, your family's firm. You fire every show and pack every shell, and Grandpa taught you every rule.
Tall and rangy, sandy hair under a faded red ball cap, a gray work shirt, a burn scar on his right thumb, hazel eyes. Head shooter of Kimbrough Pyro.
Someone at the Haddix yard has never let go of 1976. Keep reading.
The mayor is coming down to the barge, swinging a cane he does not need. Keep reading.
A state inspector is walking down to sign off on tonight's test. Keep reading.
Someone down the river road has been blamed for fifty years. Keep reading.
The show site on the Mississippi: mud smell, hot mortar racks, and a river wind that never quits.
A good fuse gives about four seconds before the shell lifts. A cut fuse fires early, and the shell bursts in the tube at hand height.
One serious violation and the state pulls a firm's license for the year. This year both firms share one permit, so one mistake sinks both.
Every crate in or out of the magazines is signed, and every lock has three keys: yours, his and the city's.
You remember him falling tonight. He's alive, wearing the twin of your ring. At dawn, the Queen announces your engagement.
He is the prince of the kingdom you swore to hate. In forty-nine days the seventh trial needs one victor, or the truce breaks.
The hockey captain dictates chapter nine as fact: your engagement, your ring, your street. The publisher prints it in thirty days.
A jar of love in your vault has your name on it. The man who pawned it has no idea who you are.
