Change of Direction

ON THE PLAINS OF NORTH-west Oklahoma, you can see for miles: nothing but prairie grass, clumps of cedar trees and rugged red-rock canyons. But even with my binoculars, I could barely make out the helicopters, one after the other, dumping water on a wildfire at the horizon. I wasn’t concerned by the small plume of smoke snaking skyward. It had to be at least 50 miles away, across the South Canadian River even.

That afternoon, my uncle Larry and cousin Tony and I had driven to this 4,000-acre ranch for a planned three days of turkey hunting. Larry had brought three horses for us to use, moseying about the ranch like real cowpokes. At age 57, I was semiretired from a career in retail management. It felt great to get away for some male bonding.

I snapped a few pictures of the bushy cedars, the canyon rims—nothing but blue skies above—and texted them