The Auctioneer's Apprentice

My name is Rufus Lowe. I'm fifty-two years old, and I've been auctioneering for almost thirty years. Eighteen months ago I met a woman named Erin Tanaka at a charity auction she organized, and she hired me to call it. She was thirty-seven then, a marketing director, funny in a dry way, and she laughed at my impressions of old auctioneers. I asked her to dinner before the night was over. Now she's thirty-eight and I'm dragging her into the wilderness, and I'm keeping a training log about it like a drill instructor, which I nearly am.

The log is a bunch of email drafts to myself. Nobody else reads them. That's the point.

* * *

Draft, saved Tuesday night, six weeks before we leave.

Subject: Lost Coast prep. Erin conditioning plan.

The trip is twenty-five miles of the Lost Coast Trail. You can only walk it at low tide in places. Sea cliffs, gravel beaches, no road in or out. Cell service is a rumor, a bar here and there on the headlands. This is exactly what she needs and exactly what I want, and I'm not sure which of those is the honest reason.

Here's the truth I'm only putting in this draft: I'm bored. Not with her. With the routine. Dinner on Fridays. Her place, my place. Movies. The same loop hike at the regional park where she stops at the same bench and I pretend I don't know we're stopping there. We've done that loop maybe twenty times in a year and a half. She deserves better than a loop. So do I.

Plan for her, six weeks out:

Weeks one and two: two-mile walks, flat, five days a week. She'll say it's too easy. Good. Let her feel victorious.

Weeks three and four: add hills. Make her carry a daypack with ten pounds in it. Don't tell her it's ten pounds. Tell her it's water and snacks.

Weeks five and six: one six-miler on a real trail, boots broken in, no skipping.

Concern: she quits things when they stop being fun. Not because she's lazy. She's the opposite of lazy at work, she ran a whole rebrand in nine weeks. But hiking isn't work. There's no deadline, no praise, no deck to present. She gets bored and I get scared she'll quit, and worse, I'll take it personally like an idiot.

Correction. She doesn't quit things. She quit Zumba. Zumba doesn't count. The ocean will be her Zumba, and I'll be there every step, and if she hates it we turn around at the first creek and get burgers in Garberville and laugh about it for a year.

Second concern: me. I've been doing this thirty years. Patience is not my natural setting. I talk fast for a living. Out there I have to slow down and be a teacher, and I'd better be a good one, because she's going to be watching me the whole time to see if I'm disappointed in her.

I won't be. Write that down, Rufus. You won't be.

* * *

Voicemail, left for her the night after Day One, one bar on the headland, while she was down at the creek.

"Hey, it's me. Day one is done and you did it. Nine miles with a full pack over that first headland, and I heard you swearing at the switchbacks, I want you to know I heard it and I admired it. You made camp like you'd done it before. Okay. Now the scolding. You filled your bottle from the creek and didn't use the filter. Erin. The filter. The filter exists for that reason. Giardia is not a souvenir. You laughed at me at dinner so I know you're hearing this. You called me a drill sergeant. Fine. Sergeant Lowe accepts the title. Drink the filtered water, take the ibuprofen before bed, not after, and look at the ocean for me before you sleep. Tomorrow's shorter but steeper. I'm proud of you. That's the message. Goodnight."

She texted back two minutes later. A saluting emoji and the words "yes drill sergeant!" I read it four times. I'm not proud of that.

* * *

Note, handwritten, tucked into the top of her pack while she was brushing her teeth at the creek. She found it in the morning. I know because she read it out loud at breakfast, doing my auctioneer voice, which is a low blow and very effective.

Trail commands, for Erin, who requested none and is getting them anyway.

One. "Step where I step." Means the footing's bad and I've picked a line. Don't freelance.

Two. "Tide check." Means we stop and I look at the water and the watch, and you drink something while you wait. Both tides matter out here. The ocean doesn't negotiate.

Three. "Snack, now!" Means your blood sugar is writing checks your legs can't cash. Non-negotiable. I will count to three.

Four. "Bail point." Means this is the last easy spot to turn around. We decide together. That's a real vote, not a ceremony. If you say turn, we turn.

Five. "Trust me. I'll catch you."

That last one is for the scramble section on Day Two. There's a spot where you climb down a rock face with a drop below it that looks worse than it is. It looks worse than it is, but it's still real, and I'll be below you the whole way with my hands free. I've caught bigger people than you. I've caught drunk people, which you will never be on my trail, so you're already my favorite client.

Trust me. I'll catch you.

* * *

Text exchange, lunch, Day Two, sitting on driftwood above a cove, one bar, her thirty feet away.

Erin: question. Have you ever lost anyone on a hike? like actually lost them

Me: lost as in temporarily or lost as in the other thing

Erin: the other thing

Me: no. Never. Nobody

Erin: you typed that too fast. You dodged something. What

Me: I didn't dodge. I answered a question you didn't ask and now you're fishing

Erin: Rufus. Push came to shove, now you. What happened

I sat there with a tortilla in one hand and the ocean doing its thing below me. She was thirty feet away, hair full of salt, watching me not answer. She's very good at waiting. Auctioneers respect that.

Me: my ex-wife. Nadia. We did one trip, year six of the marriage. She quit at the car. Wouldn't even do the first mile. Said she'd married me, not my hobby. We were divorced inside two years. That's the whole story and it's not a hiking story, it's just the story I tell when I'm scared you're going to be her

Erin: I'm not Nadia. I did nine miles yesterday. On my own legs.

Me: I know. I know you did. It's my scar, not your problem

Erin: eat your lunch, sergeant.

I ate my lunch. The woman can end a conversation like she's dropping a gavel.

* * *

Draft, saved Day Three, after the crossing.

Subject: Mattole crossing, the one I underestimated.

The creek was up from rain somewhere upstream. Knee deep, moving fast, cold enough to make a grown man sing. I crossed first with the packs on a line, then came back for her. She went in without being asked twice and I want that noted, because the water hit her thighs and she yelped a word I've never heard her say at a dinner party.

Then the current caught her, or she slipped, some of both, and she grabbed my arm and we stood there braced against it, laughing like fools, and when she came out the other side her shirt was soaked and clinging to her chest, every line of her, and the cold had done what cold does.

I looked away. I had to look away. We've been dating eighteen months and she's thirty-eight and beautiful and I've seen plenty, but there was something about her standing there soaked and triumphant on a gravel bar with nobody for twenty-five miles