By Sorrow's River (Berrybender Narratives Series #3) Book

'By Sorrows River' continues the story of the Berrybender safari into the dark plains and deserts of 1833 America! The Berrybenders are a ragged group at this point in their exploration, having had many disasters by accident and Indian fights. However, nothing deters the alcoholic Lord Berrybender from his desire to shoot every animal which crosses his path, not the deaths of kith and kin, not the unsuitable marriage of his daughter, Lady Tasmin, to an uncouth mountain man, Jim 'Sin Killer' Snow, not the births of babies to his daughter and his mistress.

Tasmin is a force of nature - strong, willful, tempestuous. As the book opens, she is very angry with her husband. He once again has disappeared into the Wild scouting with Kit Carson, unable to tolerate the claustrophobia of living within a trading post or camp. Their baby is healthy, but Monty already is having accidents exploring around the horses.

Emotions are high among the women. Tasmin's sisters, traumatized Bess, teenager Mary, and even 4-year-old Kate (formerly Ten), are falling in love with the tough hunters, handsome Indians, and adventure-seeking aristocratic men they see every day. Tasmin has needs she cannot control, so one of the more attractive men about her, Pomp Charbonneau (Sacagawea's son), has more than caught her eye - she has fallen in love with him. Everyone in camp knows, but since almost all of the women who have been traveling with the family have been playing musical chairs in their love lives, no one cares. Only Snow is clueless. The other women are paired up with various men - at least, as long as the gentlemen haven't yet been killed in an Indian fight - so the dramas of Tasmin are only larger than life because of her beauty and spirit..

Despite the deaths of most of the people who the Berrybenders had hired to accompany them on their journey from the Missouri, where they had abandoned their rented boat, to the Yellowstone River, where they had met a variety of fascinating mountain men, and to where they were now currently camped in the Valley of Chickens where a fur-trading meeting had taken place, none of the family had been homesick to date. But now, even though they were on the last leg of their trip - to visit Santa Fe - inexplicably homesickness has suddenly struck many of the characters. However, the call of the Wild West, the daily challenges and excitements of their trek, and the fascinating characters who continually rotate in and out of their journey are still drawing the family onward to see more. But perhaps the fact that to get to Santa Fe means crossing a desert without water would have caused them to stop if they had only known it. The 'Sin Killer', never a very talkative man, neglects to inform them they will have to ration water until only after they have entered the desert...