In 1844, Quincy Sutton, a sixteen-year-old farm boy living near the town of Nauvoo, Illinois, is drawn into the area’s violent disputes between Mormons and non-Mormons. In search of a different way of life, away from his farm and the enveloping religious troubles, he joins a secret expedition to locate and establish a new Mormon community in the northern wilderness. As a “gentile,” as the Mormons refer to non-Mormons, Quincy has no stake in the future community. He does, however, have much to gain or lose. He falls for a Mormon girl with whom he seeks a bright future. He risks losing his farm. And he risks losing his life.
With the help of a pair of affable Métis backwoodsmen, as well as Native Americans, Quincy survives attempts on his life and comes to see the wider world for what it is―a dangerous place. He discovers in himself what it takes to get by in that world, and what matters most.
In 1844, Quincy Sutton, a sixteen-year-old farm boy living near the town of Nauvoo, Illinois, is drawn into the area’s violent disputes between Mormons and non-Mormons. In search of a different way of life, away from his farm and the enveloping religious troubles, he joins a secret expedition to locate and establish a new Mormon community in the northern wilderness. As a “gentile,” as the Mormons refer to non-Mormons, Quincy has no stake in the future community. He does, however, have much to gain or lose. He falls for a Mormon girl with whom he seeks a bright future. He risks losing his farm. And he risks losing his life.
With the help of a pair of affable Métis backwoodsmen, as well as Native Americans, Quincy survives attempts on his life and comes to see the wider world for what it is―a dangerous place. He discovers in himself what it takes to get by in that world, and what matters most.
Rivers of the North
by
Jeffrey W. Tenney
Copyright © 2025 by Jeffrey W. Tenney.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Printed in the United States of America.
This book is a work of fiction. Not one word of the text was generated by AI. The image is AI generated. Names, characters, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, other than Brigham Young and Abraham Lincoln, is entirely coincidental.
For information contact: www.jeffreywtenney.com
Whistle Creek Press 2025
ISBN: 9798269198903
First Edition
Other books by this author
Corps of Discovery: A Novel of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-1806
Caveman
Caveman’s Daughter
Kimberling Bridge
Real Enough
Hit Back
The Crossing Wolves
Minnesota Anthology
They Gathered as Unto Strife
Reentry
Apache Sun
For
A Better World
▪ Chapter 1 ▪
June-August 1842
WHEN I REACHED the age of fourteen and the size of a grown man already, Mrs. Kitteridge, my teacher, informed me that my schooling days were over. Younger children, new to the school, would be taking the desks of older ones. It was time to turn my life entirely to farming and to make something of myself in that profession.
I confess I was not Mrs. Kitteridge’s best student. Perhaps I sat too close to the window. Rather than listen to a teacher as bored as the children prattle on, I preferred listening to the wind rustle the trees outside and watch the songbirds as they flew and flittered by. Something out there thrilled those birds in a way nothing inside ever matched. Mrs. Kitteridge stopped by our house a few times to try to make sense of my struggles. Grandpa listened to her with more attentiveness than I could ever muster, but upon her leaving, all he ever said to me was, “Try to do better. You got it in you.”
I saw both good and not so good in the news that my school days were done. Good to be free, like those birds, but something in me not exactly inspired by the prospect of a long life of farming. Was that “something” what Grandpa meant by “You got it in you?”
On my last day of school, I asked him to explain what he meant, he leaned toward me and said, “Look, Quince. I know you’ve been thinking that your days of book learning are done. But they ain’t. Not if you plan to do something in this world other than farm. There’s easier ways to make a living these days. Solid ways. Dependable ways. I wish I had the money to send you off to some big school back east, but we’ll have to make do with what we have in these parts. I ordered some books for you. Should be here in a week or so.”
In the meantime, I had chores to occupy my time sunrise to dinner. Cows to be milked in the morning and that milk to be delivered promptly into Nauvoo, the new and prosperous town built mostly by the Mormons. We had crops to be picked and hay to be cut in the early afternoon, horses to be fed and stalls to be cleaned in late afternoon. Somewhere in there I grabbed a quick lunch. Work on the farm was never easy, but knowing what to do and when to do it was as natural as the passing of the seasons. We did what needed doing, we sold our product, we made money, and there were no hard feelings gnawing at our backs. But as settled as things were, I suppose I felt like Grandpa that there was something more in me. I had an itch that needed scratching.
ONCE THOSE books arrived, I found myself more the student than I had ever been in school. I still had chores on the farm, mostly the milking and delivery, but from noon until dinnertime I was to wrestle with those books. Grandpa never let me off the book harness. I read books in my room. I read books in the shade of the six-tree apple orchard. I read books down at my favorite fishing spot on the river. I read Frankenstein and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, both of which I liked, and Pride and Prejudice, which was too much to do with fancy English people in fancy places for my taste. I read philosophy and Greek plays and even Shakespeare. Grandpa wanted to see me write a whole page of my thoughts about each book. My last book, before everything changed for me, was called Critique of Pure Reason.
I had to ask my grandpa why he had ordered that last one. The ones with stories were easy to follow, but that one by the German philosopher made my head spin. I might have gotten something out of it—from those patches that made any sense at all—but I could never have explained clearly what it might be. I did gain appreciation for how deep some thinkers could go in matters that seemed of great importance. I hoped that I might one day catch up to some of their thinking.
“A good idea can sink into a fella real quiet-like and take its time coming to the surface,” Grandpa said. “You hang on to that book and try it again about twenty years on. Might surprise you how much them ideas have been speaking to you all along. The wise man reflects on the world, and the world reflects on the wise man.”
I have to say, I came to like books. I came to like them much more than farm work. I began to wonder where they might lead me. Perhaps to one of those ways of making a living outside of farming that Grandpa had mentioned. My imagination seemed to have nowhere to go in that direction, however. Farming was all I knew.
I WAS NEARING the age of fifteen when, as some people say when trouble is starting up, the water began to rise. I am not talking about our river, the Mississippi, I am talking about events in the affairs of people that change even hazy prospects into hard facts. A single event might not trigger the flood, but it might provide a person his first sign of its coming. Looking back, that event for me is as obvious as a bleeding ulcer.
I was late-night fishing on the river where it edged over our property line for a ways before turning back toward Nauvoo. The heavy, late summer air had cooled enough that I thought my chances were good for a nice catch of catfish. But before I could even get my line wet, I spotted firelight out on the mile-long, wooded island about two hundred yards from where I sat in my little johnboat. That was the first I had seen of anyone but myself setting foot on that island, let alone setting up a camp there. The island was fair for squirrel hunting but nothing else, and it offered nothing by way of natural wonder.
Having a fourteen-year-old’s curiosity about things even a little out of ordinary, I rowed my boat across our side of the river to where I could hear voices from the direction of the fire. A crescent moon did little to light the island, or the river, so I had no concern about being seen out there on that coal-black water. Fifty yards from shore, I was close enough to detect a hint of smoke in the air as it drifted out of the dark woods in my direction.
What I heard was a mix of voices, men’s voices. I couldn’t make much sense of it, but it seemed to include both squabbling and laughter. An argument for one moment, then a stretch of quiet, then a holler and a hoot. I couldn’t have said whether those people were having a camp party or a brawl. Drunks, maybe? Behind all that, though, was something else, a muffled scream, as if someone was trying to be heard from behind a wall.
I knew by age fourteen that a man can scream when full of joy, or full of pride, or full of many other good things, even the idiocy of drunkenness. But the screaming I was hearing wasn’t like any of those.
I grounded my boat on a small patch of sandy shore at what I believed to be a safe hundred yards from the big commotion. I don’t believe I even asked myself why I would attempt to peek in on whatever it was I was hearing. It was childhood instinct is all. I didn’t know the rules yet. I hadn’t yet identified all the things that could jump up and bite me. And they darn sure weren’t teaching that kind of thing in school or I would have paid more attention.
Anyway, after a major struggle through the tangled, night-shrouded undergrowth of the island, guided by the continuing sound of men’s voices, I caught sight of the fire. A few more cautious steps revealed a group of four men standing around the fire. I feared I was making too much noise, so I lowered myself onto the leafy debris of the forest floor, right up next to an old rotting tree stump that made for good hiding.
What I saw in the dancing firelight caused me no immediate concern. Just four men at the fire talking now in milder, perhaps even polite voices. All wore faded denim overalls, three wore the flat straw hats common among the farmers thereabouts. There was a fifth man, however, about ten feet from the fire and opposite the four. That man was somewhat obscured in darkness, but I could see that he was tied in ropes, hands and feet, his mouth gagged, and the whole of him tied to the base of a tree. He offered no struggle against his bindings. His face, being well lit by the fire, revealed eyes the size of dollar coins. They skipped from one of the four men to the next. What looked like panic in those eyes caused me to shiver, body and limbs all. His lips worked against the gag in a quiet struggle―aimed, I figured, either at getting more air or at speaking. Then one of those muffled screams escaped him.
One of the men at the fire, a short man with a sagging gut and grease-stained overalls, took hold of an axe handle that rested against his leg and walked over to the bound man. He poked the man in the stomach.
“That wailing won’t do you no good,” the man with the axe handle said. He laughed. “We just now come to an agreement, anyway.” He walked back to the fire and joined the others.
“I ain’t agreed yet,” one of the other men said. That man’s heavy, dark beard made his face hard to read, especially in the flickering light, but something in his shifting stance hinted at disfavor with the goings-on. “I ain’t whole against you men,” he said after a moment, “but I don’t much like seeing this as we have it now. Only godly thing to do now is to put a bullet in him.”
“Well, we do agree he ain’t leaving here,” the third man said. That man was the tall one, the one with no hat. Tall and thin as a wheat stalk. Had to be six and a half feet of him. Add another two inches for the pile of hair on his head. “I’ll say it plain,” he said. “I take some pleasure in seeing him like this. And I believe God has no problem with it, either. Hell awaits this blaspheming sonofabitch.”
A nod and a “Praise the Lord” from two of the others.
“It’s gonna get worse for him in Hell,” the tall one continued, “but let’s not send him in any condition to trouble the Devil.” He pointed to the axe handle the short one held.
“Yes, sir. His body stays right here,” the short one said, smiling at the others and shaking the axe handle in the air. “We’ll let the Devil take care of his soul.”
“Well, all right, then,” the fourth man said. He faced the darkly bearded man. “Ephraim, if you don’t want to see this, then head on back to the boat. We won’t take more than fifteen, twenty minutes.” That man’s voice had the tone of authority in it, as though he had the final word. His muscular arms and broad shoulders suggested he could back up any words that came out of his mouth.
“Ah, I guess I have to stay for it,” the man called Ephraim said, looking down at the fire. “I won’t shirk my part.”
“I was thinking of burning,” the tall one said. “I heard Indians burn a captured man’s feet. Do that long enough and it heats his blood until his brain cooks away.”
“This heathen ain’t got no brain,” the short one replied with a belly-rolling laugh. “Nothing in there but Mormon dirt.”
The muscled one, who seemed to be the leader, pulled a pair of work gloves from his chest pocket and put them on. He leaned over the fire and lifted out a stick flaming at one end. “This one had three wives,” he said, pointing the stick at the bound man. “Two of them married to good Catholics like us in the meantime. Seems they all want our women, and as many as they can get. I reckon they think on that plenty, with whatever they might have for brains.”
The tall man pulled out his hunting knife and waved it around. “Could cut some pieces off him. I know where I’d start.”
“Yeah!” said the shorty. “Skin him like a horned buck, which is what he is.”
Ephraim then pulled a pistol from his side holster. He walked over to the bound man and showed him the gun. “You want it this way?” he asked, although not with malice in his tone. “The more they talk, the worse it’s going to get.”
I saw the bound man’s head nod, slowly at first, then vigorously.
“Ephraim, you let us take care of this,” the leader said loudly. “It could have been your wife this mongrel was after.“
I felt a mosquito light on my hand, and as I reached down to brush it off, the sound of the shot triggered a convulsion through my body, accompanied by the kind of childish squeal that a fourteen-year-old boy never wants to utter in front of his friends. I buried my face in my arms. I had not yet seen a dead man. I had never watched one die.
A moment later, I felt something pull hard on the back of my shirt and raise me up. I looked to see which one it was that had me, but the night obscured his face.
I landed amongst the four of them on my feet, next to the fire, my shaky legs trying to fold under me. I was determined not to let them. The leader was the one to haul me in, and I felt like one of them catfish being hauled into a strange boat with hands all about him and nothing but scant air to breathe.
“You seen what was done here,” the leader said. “Any more of you out there sneaking around?”
I shook my head.
“Seen our fire, huh?”
I nodded.
“From around here?”
I pointed toward the river.
“Over yonder? The Sutton place? You be Sally’s boy I remember from church a long time back?”
I nodded again, my voice being like something I had left behind.
“Fine woman, that Sally. I was sorry to hear of her passing. How many years that been now?”
I remained quiet.
“Come on, son, speak up. We got things to talk about.”
It wasn’t easy but the words came out. “Eight…eight years, sir.”
“Ah, that long already. I believe I heard your pa skedaddled. He ever come back?”
“No, sir.”
My eyes left the fire and settled on the dead man, slack and still on the other side of it, his shirt and the rope that held him now bloodied. The leader’s hand fell upon my shoulder.
“You be with your granddaddy, then?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That would be Hiram. I knowed Hiram well in past times. Good Christian man in them days. Don’t believe I seen him in church since Sally’s passing.”
“Hiram drops into the mercantile now and then,” said the short man. “I believe I seen this boy with him a time or two.”
“I done work out at his place two years back,” the tall man said. “This is his boy. Grown some considerable, but his boy.”
The leader squeezed my shoulder. My eyes remained on the dead man.
“What you saw here tonight, young man,” the leader said, “was the will of our Lord. This man what was killed was a fornicator, an adulterer, and a bigamist. Could be you don’t recognize those words, what ain’t meant for children to hear, but this man was a child of Satan, pure and simple. Ephraim here done the Lord’s work for him, as we are all obliged to do.
“But now you listen close to what I say next,” he continued as he turned me to face him. In direct firelight, I was certain I had never seen him before. The light leapt in frightful ways across a face I knew I would not forget.
“If word gets out about this killing,” the leader went on, that face coming close to mine as he leaned down, “the Mormon sons of Satan will come looking for us. They will rain down evil and suffering on all us good Christians hereabouts. They’s more of them than us. And they got the mayor and the sheriff.” He put a finger on my chest. “They will skin you alive, son. They will burn your granddaddy out of his farm. Make no mistake. What do you say to that?”
“I ain’t talking, sir,” I managed to say without too much shake in my voice.
“You mean you ain’t seen anything here tonight?”
“No, sir. I did not.”
“You was just doing some fishing down by the river, across over yonder?”
“Yes, sir. I didn’t see nothing.”
“And you will forget this. And say a word to no one, not even Hiram.”
I nodded. “Especially not Hiram,” I thought he wanted me to say.
Gritty and unflinching in its historic perspective, Rivers of the North by Jeffrey W. Tenney captures the troubled spirit of early America through the eyes of one young boy on a path of self-discovery.
Years after witnessing the torture of a Mormon by a group of Christians and then threatened into secrecy, 16-year-old Quince has his innocence shattered again when one of the killers callously murders his closest kin. After avenging the evil act, Quince finds himself traumatized and adrift, and in an era where disagreements over religion could cost a man his life, Quince embarks on a journey away from the all-out war descending on his small corner of the world. Throwing in his lot with a group of Mormons on their way to find a haven in Minnesota, and drawn by the impossible prospect of reuniting with his missing father, he leaves his family farm behind to follow his mother’s forgotten legacy.
Starry-eyed at the prospect of an adventure, and the chance to spend more time with the comely young Charlotte Benchley, he launches himself up the Mississippi and sets sail into the unknown. However, he soon learns that his presence on the pilgrimage north was anything but accidental, and that the tragic deaths of his grandfather and father were part of a much more sinister scheme. Fleeing the murderous plotters with an arrow in his back, Quince must navigate the wilderness of Minnesota and find his own form of retribution, but he finds unlikely allies in French fur traders and local Indians who understand something about being betrayed by promise-wielding white men. Echoing The Count of Monte Cristo, with just as many colorful characters and powerful themes of righteous vengeance, this coming-of-age novel crackles with tension and authenticity.
As a cultural study of the pioneer era, Tenney sheds harsh light on the violent divides that quietly defined that chapter of adolescent America. Contrary to the country’s foundational ideas of religious freedom, this story is a reminder that our national reality has frequently been shaped by the explosive conflicts of different faiths. This is layered on the perennial discord between Native Americans and treaty-breaking settlers, helping this book to evolve into a brutally honest portrait of the early American experience. From steamboat rambling and backcountry survival to intertribal warfare and learning about the low price of life in the wild, the prose is evocative, visceral and deeply researched. Despite the historical setting, there are unmissable parallels to growing religious divides of today, and the desperation that young people feel in a world that dismisses them out of hand.
Quince’s narrative voice is rich in colloquial flavor and idiomatic phrasing, transporting readers to an older time, but the dialogue occasionally comes off as anachronistic in terms of word choice, which can feel dissonant with the atmosphere of the prose. The plot is easy to follow, yet unpredictable, and the supporting characters are thoroughly developed, acting as valuable guides and companions for Quince, rather than superficial foils. This is particularly true of Joe and Sam, who provide much of the emotional support and facilitation of Quince’s quest.Enthralling, educational and unexpectedly relevant to contemporary issues, this novel lands in the sweet spot of historical fiction, survival adventure, and YA drama.