She looked at the snow-covered mountains. Her job had seemed hard at times, in New York. She had stopped for blank moments in the middle of her office, paralyzed by despair at the rigidity of time which she could not stretch any further—on a day when urgent appointments had succeeded one another, when she had discussed worn Diesels, rotting freight cars, failing signal systems, falling revenues, while thinking of the latest emergency on the Rio Norte construction; when she had talked, with the vision of two streaks of green-blue metal cutting across her mind; when she had interrupted the discussions, realizing suddenly why a certain news item had disturbed her, and seized the telephone receiver to call long-distance, to call her contractor, to say, “Where do you get the food from, for your men?
... I thought so. Well, Barton and Jones of Denver went bankrupt yesterday. Better find another supplier at once, if you don’t want to have a famine on your hands.” She had been building the line from her desk in New York. It had seemed hard. But now she was looking at the track. It was growing. It would be done on time.
She heard sharp, hurried footsteps, and turned. A man was coming up the track. He was tall and young, his head of black hair was hatless in the cold wind, he wore a workman’s leather jacket, but he did not look like a workman, there was too imperious an assurance in the way he walked. She could not recognize the face until he came closer. It was Ellis Wyatt. She had not seen him since that one interview in her office.
He approached, stopped, looked at her and smiled.
“Hello, Dagny,” he said.
In a single shock of emotion, she knew everything the two words were intended to tell her. It was forgiveness, understanding, acknowledgment. It was a salute.
She laughed, like a child, in happiness that things should be as right as that.
“Hello,” she said, extending her hand.
His hand held hers an instant longer than a greeting required. It was their signature under a score settled and understood.
“Tell Nealy to put up new snow fences for a mile and a half on Granada Pass,” he said. “The old ones are rotted. They won’t stand through another storm. Send him a rotary plow. What he’s got is a piece of junk that wouldn’t sweep a back yard. The big snows are coming any day now.”
She considered him for a moment.
“How often have you been doing this?” she asked.
“What?”
“Coming to watch the work.”
“Every now and then. When I have the time. Why?”
“Were you here the night when they had the rock slide?”
“Yes.”
“I was surprised how quickly and well they cleared the track, when I got the reports about it. It made me think that Nealy was a better man than I had thought”
“He isn’t.”
“Was it you who organized the system of moving his day’s supplies down to the line?”
“Sure. His men used to spend half their time hunting for things.
Tell him to watch his water tanks. They’ll freeze on him one of these nights. See if you can get him a new ditcher. I don’t like the looks of the one he’s got. Check on his wiring system.”
She looked at him for a moment. “Thanks, Ellis,” she said.
He smiled and walked on. She watched him as he walked across the bridge, as he started up the long rise toward his derricks.
“He thinks he owns the place, doesn’t he?”
She turned, startled. Ben Nealy had approached her; his thumb was pointing at Ellis Wyatt.
“What place?”
“The railroad, Miss Taggart. Your railroad. Or the whole world maybe. That’s what he thinks.”
Ben Nealy was a bulky man with a soft, sullen face. His eyes were stubborn and blank. In die bluish light of the snow, his skin had the tinge of butter.
“What does he keep hanging around here for?” he said. “As if nobody knew their business but him. The snooty show-off. Who does he think he is?”
“God damn you,” said Dagny evenly, not raising her voice.
Nealy could never know what had made her say it. But some part of him, in some way of his own, knew it: the shocking thing to her was that he was not shocked. He said nothing.
“Let’s go to your quarters,” she said wearily, pointing to an old railway coach on a spur in the distance. “Have somebody there to take notes.”
“Now about those crossties, Miss Taggart,” he said hastily as they started. “Mr. Coleman of your office okayed them. He didn’t say anything about too much bark. I don’t see why you think they’re—”
“I said you’re going to replace them.”
When she came out of the coach, exhausted by two hours of effort to be patient, to instruct, to explain—she saw an automobile parked on the torn dirt road below, a black two-seater, sparkling and new. A new car was an astonishing sight anywhere; one did not see them often.
She glanced around and gasped at the sight of the tall figure standing at the foot of the bridge. It was Hank Rearden; she had not expected to find him in Colorado. He seemed absorbed in calculations, pencil and notebook in hand. His clothes attracted attention, like his car and for the same reason; he wore a simple trenchcoat and a hat with a slanting brim, but they were of such good quality, so flagrantly expensive that they appeared ostentatious among the seedy garments of the crowds everywhere, the more ostentatious because worn so naturally.
She noticed suddenly that she was running toward him; she had lost all trace of exhaustion. Then she remembered that she had not seen him since the party. She stopped.
He saw her, he waved to her in a gesture of pleased, astonished greeting, and he walked forward to meet her. He was smiling.
“Hello,” he said. “Your first trip to the job?”
“My fifth, in three months.”
“I didn’t know you were here. Nobody told me.”
“I thought you’d break down some day.”
“Break down?”
“Enough to come and see this. There’s your Metal. How do you like it?”
He glanced around. “If you ever decide to quit the railroad business, let me know.”
“You’d give me a job?”
“Any time.”
She looked at him for a moment. “You’re only half-kidding, Hank.
I think you’d like it—having me ask you for a job. Having me for an employee instead of a customer. Giving me orders to obey.”
“Yes. I would.”
She said, her face hard, “Don’t quit the steel business, I won’t promise you a job on the railroad.”
He laughed. “Don’t try it.”
“What?”
“To win any battle when I set the terms.”
She did not answer. She was struck by what the words made her feel; it was not an emotion, but a physical sensation of pleasure, which she could not name or understand.
“Incidentally,” he said, “this is not my first trip. I was here yesterday.”
“You were? Why?”
“Oh, I came to Colorado on some business of my own, so I thought I’d take a look at this.”
“What are you after?”
“Why do you assume that I’m after anything?”
“You wouldn’t waste time coming here just to look. Not twice.”
He laughed. “True.” He pointed at the bridge. “I’m after that.”
“What about it?”
“It’s ready for the scrap heap.”
