Atlas Shrugged (18 page)

She had telephoned the mills and made an appointment to see Hank Rearden that afternoon. She had just hung up the receiver and was bending over the maps of the Rio Norte Line spread on her desk, when the door opened. Dagny looked up, startled; she did not expect the door of her office to open without announcement.

The man who entered was a stranger. He was young, tall, and something about him suggested violence, though she could not say what it was, because the first trait one grasped about him was a quality of self-control that seemed almost arrogant. He had dark eyes, disheveled hair, and his clothes were expensive, but worn as if he did not care or notice what he wore.

“Ellis Wyatt,” he said in self-introduction.

She leaped to her feet, involuntarily. She understood why nobody had or could have stopped him in the outer office.

“Sit down, Mr. Wyatt,” she said, smiling.

“It won’t be necessary.” He did not smile. “I don’t hold long conferences.”

Slowly, taking her time by conscious intention, she sat down and leaned back, looking at him.

“Well?” she asked.

“I came to see you because I understand you’re the only one who’s got any brains in this rotten outfit.”

“What can I do for you?”

“You can listen to an ultimatum.” He spoke distinctly, giving an unusual clarity to every syllable. “I expect Taggart Transcontinental, nine months from now, to run trains in Colorado as my business requires them to be run. If the snide stunt you people perpetrated on the Phoenix-Durango was done for the purpose of saving yourself from the necessity of effort, this is to give you notice that you will not get away with it. I made no demands on you when you could not give me the kind of service I needed. I found someone who could. Now you wish to force me to deal with you. You expect to dictate terms by leaving me no choice. You expect me to hold my business down to the level of your incompetence. This is to tell you that you have miscalculated.”

She said slowly, with effort, “Shall I tell you what I intend to do about our service in Colorado?”

“No. I have no interest in discussions and intentions. I expect transportation. What you do to furnish it and how you do it, is your problem, not mine. I am merely giving you a warning. Those who wish to deal with me, must do so on my terms or not at all. I do not make terms with incompetence. If you expect to earn money by carrying the oil I produce, you must be as good at your business as I am at mine. I wish this to be understood.”

She said quietly, “I understand.”

“I shan’t waste time proving to you why you’d better take my ultimatum seriously. If you have the intelligence to keep this corrupt organization functioning at all, you have the intelligence to judge this for yourself. We both know that if Taggart Transcontinental runs trains in Colorado the way it did five years ago, it will ruin me. I know that that is what you people intend to do. You expect to feed off me while you can and to find another carcass to pick dry after you have finished mine. That is the policy of most of mankind today. So here is my ultimatum: it is now in your power to destroy me; I may have to go; but if I go, I’ll make sure that I take all the rest of you along with me.”

Somewhere within her, under the numbness that held her still to receive the lashing, she felt a small point of pain, hot like the pain of scalding. She wanted to tell him of the years she had spent looking for men such as he to work with; she wanted to tell him that his enemies were hers, that she was fighting the same battle; she wanted to cry to him: I’m not one of them! But she knew that she could not do it. She bore the responsibility for Taggart Transcontinental and for everything done in its name; she had no right to justify herself now.

Sitting straight, her glance as steady and open as his, she answered evenly, “You will get the transportation you need, Mr. Wyatt.”

She saw a faint hint of astonishment in his face; this was not the manner or the answer he had expected; perhaps it was what she had not said that astonished him most: that she offered no defense, no excuses. He took a moment to study her silently. Then he said, his voice less sharp:

“All right. Thank you. Good day.”

She inclined her head. He bowed and left the office.

“That’s the story, Hank. I had worked out an almost impossible schedule to complete the Rio Norte Line in twelve months. Now I’ll have to do it in nine. You were to give us the rail over a period of one year. Can you give it to us within nine months? If there’s any human way to do it, do it. If not, I’ll have to find some other means to finish it.”

Rearden sat behind his desk. His cold, blue eyes made two horizontal cuts across the gaunt planes of his face; they remained horizontal, impassively half-closed; he said evenly, without emphasis:

“I’ll do it.”

Dagny leaned back in her chair. The short sentence was a shock. It was not merely relief: it was the sudden realization that nothing else was necessary to guarantee that it would be done; she needed no proofs, no questions, no explanations; a complex problem could rest safely on three syllables pronounced by a man who knew what he was saying.

“Don’t show that you’re relieved.” His voice was mocking. “Not too obviously.” His narrowed eyes were watching her with an unrevealing smile. “I might think that I hold Taggart Transcontinental in my power.”

“You know that, anyway.”

“I do. And I intend to make you pay for it.”

“I expect to. How much?”

“Twenty dollars extra per ton on the balance of the order delivered after today.”

“Pretty steep, Hank. Is that the best price you can give me?”

“No. But that’s the one I’m going to get. I could ask twice that and you’d pay it.”

“Yes, I would. And you could. But you won’t.”

“Why won’t I?”

“Because you need to have the Rio Norte Line built. It’s your first showcase for Rearden Metal.”

He chuckled. “That’s right. I like to deal with somebody who has no illusions about getting favors.”

“Do you know what made me feel relieved, when you decided to take advantage of it?”

“What?”

“That I was dealing, for once, with somebody who doesn’t pretend to give favors.”

His smile had a discernible quality now: it was enjoyment. “You always play it open, don’t you?” he asked.

“I’ve never noticed you doing otherwise.”

“I thought I was the only one who could afford to.”

“I’m not broke, in that sense, Hank.”

“I think I’m going to break you some day—in that sense.”

“Why?”

“I’ve always wanted to.”

“Don’t you have enough cowards around you?”

“That’s why I’d enjoy trying it—because you’re the only exception. So you think it’s right that I should squeeze every penny of profit I can, out of your emergency?”

“Certainly. I’m not a fool. I don’t think you’re in business for my convenience.”

“Don’t you wish I were?”

“I’m not a moocher, Hank.”

“Aren’t you going to find it hard to pay?”

“That’s my problem, not yours. I want that rail.”

“At twenty dollars extra per ton?”

“Okay, Hank.”

“Fine. You’ll get the rail. I may get my exorbitant profit—or Taggart Transcontinental may crash before I collect it.”

She said, without smiling, “If I don’t get that line built in nine months, Taggart Transcontinental
will
crash.”

“It won‘t, so long as you run it.”

When he did not smile, his face looked inanimate, only his eyes remained alive, active with a cold, brilliant clarity of perception. But what he was made to feel by the things he perceived, no one would be permitted to know, she thought, perhaps not even himself.

“They’ve done their best to make it harder for you, haven’t they?” he said.

“Yes. I was counting on Colorado to save the Taggart system. Now it’s up to me to save Colorado. Nine months from now, Dan Conway will close his road. If mine isn’t ready, it won’t be any use finishing it. You can’t leave those men without transportation for a single day, let alone a week or a month. At the rate they’ve been growing, you can’t stop them dead and then expect them to continue. It’s like slamming brakes on an engine going two hundred miles an hour.”

“I know.”

“I can run a good railroad. I can’t run it across a continent of share-croppers who’re not good enough to grow turnips successfully. I’ve got to have men like Ellis Wyatt to produce something to fill the trains I run. So I’ve got to give him a train and a track nine months from now, if I have to blast all the rest of us into hell to do it!”

He smiled, amused. “You feel very strongly about it, don’t you?”

“Don’t
you?”

He would not answer, but merely held the smile.

“Aren’t you concerned about it?” she asked, almost angrily.

“No.”

“Then you don’t realize what it means?”

“I realize that I’m going to get the rail rolled and you’re going to get the track laid in nine months.”

She smiled, relaxing, wearily and a little guiltily. “Yes. I know we will. I know it’s useless—getting angry at people like Jim and his friends. We haven’t any time for it. First, I have to undo what they’ve done. Then afterwards”—she stopped, wondering, shook her head and shrugged—“afterwards, they won’t matter.”

“That’s right. They won’t. When I heard about that Anti-dog-eat-dog business, it made me sick. But don’t worry about the goddamn bastards.” The two words sounded shockingly violent, because his face and voice remained calm. “You and I will always be there to save the country from the consequences of their actions.” He got up; he said, pacing the office, “Colorado isn’t going to be stopped. You’ll pull it through. Then Dan Conway will be back, and others. All that lunacy is temporary. It can’t last. It’s demented, so it has to defeat itself. You and I will just have to work a little harder for a while, that’s all.”

She watched his tall figure moving across the office. The office suited him; it contained nothing but the few pieces of furniture he needed, all of them harshly simplified down to their essential purpose, all of them exorbitantly expensive in the quality of materials and the skill of design. The room looked like a motor—a motor held within the glass case of broad windows. But she noticed one astonishing detail: a vase of jade that stood on top of a filing cabinet. The vase was a solid, dark green stone carved into plain surfaces; the texture of its smooth curves provoked an irresistible desire to touch it. It seemed startling in that office, incongruous with the sternness of the rest: it was a touch of sensuality.

“Colorado is a great place,” he said. “It’s going to be the greatest in the country. You’re not sure that I’m concerned about it? That state’s becoming one of my best customers, as you ought to know if you take time to read the reports on your freight traffic.”

“I know. I read them.”

“I’ve been thinking of building a plant there in a few years. To save them your transportation charges.” He glanced at her. “You’ll lose an awful lot of steel freight, if I do.”

“Go ahead. I’ll be satisfied with carrying your supplies, and the groceries for your workers, and the freight of the factories that will follow you there—and perhaps I won’t have time to notice that I’ve lost your steel.... What are you laughing at?”

“It’s wonderful.”

“What?”

“The way you don’t react as everybody else does nowadays.”

“Still, I must admit that for the time being you’re the most important single shipper of Taggart Transcontinental.”

“Don’t you suppose I know it?”

“So I can’t understand why Jim—” She stopped.

“—tries his best to harm my business? Because your brother Jim is a fool.”

“He is. But it’s more than that. There’s something worse than stupidity about it.”

“Don’t waste time trying to figure him out. Let him spit. He’s no danger to anyone. People like Jim Taggart just clutter up the world.”

“I suppose so.”

“Incidentally, what would you have done if I’d said I couldn’t deliver your rails sooner?”

“I would have torn up sidings or closed some branch line, any branch line, and I would have used the rail to finish the Rio Norte track on time.”

He chuckled. “That’s why I’m not worried about Taggart Transcontinental. But you won’t have to start getting rail out of old sidings. Not so long as I’m in business.”

She thought suddenly that she was wrong about his lack of emotion: the hidden undertone of his manner was enjoyment. She realized that she had always felt a sense of light-hearted relaxation in his presence and known that he shared it. He was the only man she knew to whom she could speak without strain or effort. This, she thought, was a mind she respected, an adversary worth matching. Yet there had always been an odd sense of distance between them, the sense of a closed door; there was an impersonal quality in his manner, something within him that could not be reached.