Vicki Roberts is proprietress of Black Mesa Bed & Breakfast, a 1910 native rock ranch house on a working cattle ranch near the base of Oklahoma’s highest point. On her horizon she sees New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and technicolor sunsets. A city girl, Roberts followed a cowboy to this place. The first time she saw it, she cried. Now she cans pricklypear jelly with that cowboy, her husband, Monty Joe. The color is a deep, unrelenting red, like their sky before dusk.

Originally published in This Land, Vol. 4 Issue 19. Oct. 1, 2013.