In 1836 a young boy travels with his family to East Tennessee. They settle near the famed frontier town and stagecoach stop of Bean Station where they find both fertile pasture and imposing mountains. In this rugged landscape the boy, Bartlet Yancy Harris, and his siblings mature and begin lives of promise. B.Y., as he soon becomes known, falls in love with and eventually marries Lucretia Gray, whom he has known since childhood. He and his father-in-law begin a business together, and two of his brothers marry Lucretia's sisters. But there is not always agreement between the two families: the...