They shut the interstate down just after we passed through Reno. In hindsight, I wished we had stayed in Tahoe. But that’s hindsight for you. As it was, we were due back in Logan, Utah for meetings the next morning. The storm that buried the Sierras and Reno seemed at our back as we blasted through Winnemucca, the old 4Runner running a smooth 75 across the desert. The sky above was clear but the crosswind gusts came out of nowhere and would hit us in the side like some angry god trying to shove us off the road. I was used to seeing tumbleweeds from the many times we’d made that drive both ways from Logan to the Bay Area, but I’d never seen as many as the gusts blew across the road; my wife and I gaped at the semi on the other side of the freeway whose grill held at least a dozen of the beige bushes.

The winds were manageable, and I thought we might not have left our fight with the weather back on the California-Nevada border, but as you approach Battle Mountain, the topography of the desert begins to undulate and the arrow-straight road curves here and there to avoid a hill here, an outcropping there – not significantly, mind you, but enough that you need to start paying attention. By the time you get to Elko, the gentle waves of undulations have become choppy seas of asphalt rising and falling more significantly. It was here we could see the trailing edge of the storm, marked by brilliant flashes of lightning hidden by the next rise of mountains on the approaching horizon.

For the most part just rain fell in sheets as the lightning ahead intensified. We gassed up in Elko and pushed onward. We didn’t have time to dally – as it was even without the weather I estimated we’d make it back to our apartment at the University just before midnight. Our late start with the bad weather seemed inauspicious start for this new year, but now watching the lightning flash to the east and hearing the rolling thunder, I wondered just how much trouble we were in and in what shape we’d face January 2.

Outside Wells we started up a pass where signs warned of potential chain control, but at that point it was still raining so I didn’t bother stopping at the lower chain installation shoulder and at least locking the manual hubs on the front wheels of the truck. Soon, though the rain turned to snowflakes. As we climbed, the snow started to stick. A few miles later it became clear that this pass had stalled the storm, as the snow banks on either side of the road formed white walls illuminated by our passing headlights. As we approached the summit I could barely see twenty feet ahead of me and I’d slowed my progress to a veritable crawl after I passed the first Ford Explorer spun off on the side of the road. I lost count of the cars on the side of the road as we crested the summit and started the precipitous descent as I tried to keep my wheels in the already partially covered tracks in front of us. I felt the truck shimmy a bit a few times and cursed myself for not locking the hubs, thus denying us any benefit of the 4-wheel-drive running gear.

Ahead I saw flashing amber light up the snow and shortly found myself behind a snow plow plodding down the grade. I mistakenly thought the safest place would be behind that plow, but almost immediately, he tapped his brakes for some reason and I tapped mine to maintain my buffer behind him. The stab of the brakes was all it took for the truck to lose traction and we started sliding. Panic flooded my system and I tried to regain control of the truck, but we slid steadily, inexorably towards the snowbank on the side of the road. With a fwump the snowbank arrested our slide.

Terrified that someone would crash into us, I immediately slammed the transmission into reverse, but the rear wheels found absolutely no purchase. Without even looking for my gloves I fought the ferocious wind holding the door closed and leapt from the 4Runner and started digging with my hands at the snowbank that engulfed the front wheels to get at the driver’s side wheel hub as the gale blew blinding snow into my eyes. With numb fingers I reached in and turned the notch that locked the wheel to the drive shaft.

As I crossed around the back of the truck a Nevada highway patrol officer slowed. “Are you hurt?” he yelled curtly as the snow blew fiercely into his passenger window.

“No,” I replied.

“Can you get yourself out?”

“I don’t know. I’m gonna try.”

“I’ve got six spin-outs ahead. Three behind, and the same westbound. If you’re still here when I get back we’ll see,” and he started the SUV rolling before he finished talking, window already closing as the studded tires confidently lead him back onto the road where his taillights disappeared into the gale almost instantly. I dug out the hubs on the passenger side and locked that wheel, then teeth chattering I climbed back behind the wheel, started the engine, shifted the drivetrain into 4-wheel-drive and the transmission into reverse and cautiously eased on the throttle. For a moment I thought it would catch, then the wheels started spinning.

I cursed and dried rocking forward and backwards but the truck didn’t budge. I punched the dash and only then noticed on my freezing left hand my wedding ring was gone. I gaped and Anna asked what was up and I just held up my hand missing what was my late father’s wedding ring. As I realized the futility of trying to find a ring in the snowdrift in the dark with near-blizzard winds driving and felt my emotion rising, I heard the whine of a semi and turned to see the 18-wheeler in full slide down the road only to smash into the snowbank with an explosion of white. Just barely off the freeway, that easily could have hit us. I swallowed my emotions, knowing there would be time to deal with them later.

I found my gloves and a cup in lieu of a shovel as I climbed out to clear snow from the wheels in an effort to free us. I could feel the tears freezing on my cheeks as I dug at the snow around the passenger wheels. A pair of headlights bore down on me and I felt adrenaline surge as I thought someone out of control was careening towards us. Relief doused the adrenaline as a rusty early-eighties Country Squire station wagon pulled off onto the shoulder, lights still pointing at me.

The window went down and a man with a cowboy hat leaned out, “Stuck?”

“Yeah,” I said, shielding my eyes from the blowing snow and the blinding headlights.

“Want some help pushing it out?”

“Yeah, absolutely, that would be great! Thank you!”

“Okay,” he said. “But we’ll let you keep digging a while more.”

I couldn’t protest as I turned back to my efforts. Ten minutes later I heard the doors of the old station wagon creak open and four stout cowboys climbed out, all four wearing their Stetsons tight on their heads. The driver pointed to Anna in the passenger seat holding our panicked cat. “Can she drive while we push?”

“Yeah,” and I knocked on the window and relayed the plan. Anna moved to the driver’s seat and started the engine while I put my shoulder into the grill of the 4Runner, the driver cowboy next to me and the other three finding purchase on corners of the truck. We rocked and pushed as Anna surged the engine. Wheels spun then caught, then spun, caught, spun, and finally caught, the truck backing free of the snowbank. Anna moved the truck up and out of the road, and I turned to thank the cowboys. One had already climbed back into the car, while the two others were hurrying to their doors. The driver stood next to me still and I could see the snow gathering on his mustache. “Thank you so much,” I said, shaking his rough hand. “You bet,” he said before hurrying himself to the station wagon. I got back behind the wheel of the 4Runner and started onto the road, around the stuck semi-truck and into the swirling snow.

Mercifully it was only a few white-knuckled miles before the road dropped into Wells. The dark buildings and 24-hour gas station provided evidence of the power of the storm. Despite the more sure-footedness of the 4-wheel drive and the lack of power, in town I could feel the realization of events start to creep up and knew I couldn’t make it much further before breaking down. We pulled into the parking lot of the Motel 6. The middle-aged woman found us a vacant room and checked us in by candlelight and we settled in, grateful to be out of the storm.

Anna fell asleep almost immediately, but sleep eluded me. I told Anna I was going out and gratefully found only light snow flurries when I opened the door. Even in the darkness I could make out the Four Way Bar & Casino across the street and hurried through the weather to see if they were open. Suprisingly, not only was the bar not closed (though the casino was, naturally), at least half a dozen patrons huddled around candles at the round tables. Only a couple sat at the bar, so I took a seat and asked the grizzled bartender for a shot of Jack Daniels and whatever beer he could manage.

I threw back the shot and took a pull on the Budweiser. After regarding me, the bartender asked, so I told him about the slide, the snowbank, losing my ring, and the cowboys. A smile crept over his face when I mentioned the station wagon. “What?” I asked.

“Good to know Jonny and his boys are still out there.”

“Jonny?”

“Killed in a storm twenty years ago. T-boned by a semi.”

I gave him an incredulous look.

The smile faded and he held up his hands in defense. “Hey, I’m not telling you that’s them. Maybe it was some other station wagon full of cowboys. You believe what you need to, buddy.”

“Oh, I’d believe, but forgive me if the ghost good Samaritan sounds a little cliché.”

“Not gonna disagree,” he said. “I’ve worked here for a long time,” he drew out the vowel in “long” like he was counting out the years. “I hear stories like yours during most nasty storms. First time this season,” he nodded. “Like I said, believe it or not.”

“Well, if it was Jonny, I’d buy him a beer,” and I raised the bottle in salute.

I heard the door open behind me. The bartender froze and went white.

“You’re not going to tell me…” I started.

“What’s that I hear about buying me a beer?” the voice came from behind me.