The Stranger from Heaven

Got up to 98 this afternoon, too hot to be outside, so more writing.   This story is taken from a writing exercise with the group 40 Days and 40 Writes I was with last year.   Some of you may have seen this before

In the late summer and early fall of 1997 I drove from Oregon to Indiana to visit a sister.  On my return trip I wanted to take a few extra days to see some historical sites in Wyoming, such as Fort Laramie and South Pass, where the Oregon Trail crossed the Rocky Mountains.   While driving past Lander, Wyoming it started snowing hard and when I got to the junction of the highway to go over South Pass the gate was closed due to the snow.   I had no choice, except to stay on the main highway and get back to I-80 at Rawlins.   This involved going over a mountain pass called Muddy Gap, elevation 6000 feet.  Tire chains were required which I put on my front wheel drive Ford Escort and proceeded on as the snow started blowing, making visibility difficult, if not impossible.  There was a truck I could see that had gone off the road and not much traffic after that.   Almost to the top of the summit I could feel the car slipping and losing traction.   I stopped and noticed the right front chain was gone.   It was cold and visibility was not much beyond 50 feet with blowing snow.   All of a sudden a man in an old Jeep pulled up behind me.  He had a cowboy hat on and wearing a Levi jacket and in one hand he had my tire chain.  With a big smile he asked, “Did you lose these”?   He helped me get them back on the tire as my hands were freezing.   Afterwards he said he had to check on some cattle and turned off the highway and disappeared.   How he ever saw those tire chains in the snow is beyond my imagination and I could not see any road leading off the highway where he departed, but again it was blizzard conditions.    I proceeded on down the hill to Rawlins, where I had to spend the next three days in a motel waiting for the storm to end and I-80 to reopen.  Who was that strangers?