"I guess it did."
"So put that in the book. It belongs in the book."
"I will."
"And if I can remember that other, I'll phone you, Mr. Howard."
I thanked her and left. I drove back toward the center of town. I began to think of Fitz again. Ruth was right when she used the word creepy. But it was more than that. You sensed that Fitz was a man who would not be restrained by the things that restrain the rest of us. He had proved in the camp that he didn't give a damn what people thought of him. He depended on himself to an almost psychopathic extent. It made you feel helpless in trying to deal with him. You could think of no appeal that would work. He couldn't be scared or reasoned with. He was as primitive and functional as the design of an ax. He could not even be anticipated, because his logic was not of normal pattern. And then, too, there was the startling physical strength.
In camp I had seen several minor exhibitions of that power, but only one that showed the true extent of it. Those of us who saw it talked about it a long time. The guards who saw it treated Fitz with uneasy respect after that. One of the supply trucks became mired inside the compound, rear duals down to the hubs. They broke a towline trying to snake it out. Then they rounded up a bunch of us to unload the supply truck. The cases aboard had obviously been loaded on with a winch. We got all the stuff off except one big wooden packing case. We never did learn what was in it. We only knew it was heavy. We were trying to get a crude dolly under it, but when we tilted it, we couldn't get the dolly far enough back. Every guard was yelling incomprehensible orders. I imagine Fitz lost patience. He jumped up into the bed of the truck, put his back against the case, squatted and got his fingers under the edge. Then he came up with it, his face a mask of effort, cords standing out on his throat. He lifted it high enough so the dolly could be put under it. He lowered it again and jumped down off the truck, oddly pale and perspiring heavily.
Once it was rolled to the tail gate on the dolly, enough men could get hold of it to ease it down. When it was on the ground one of the biggest of the guards swaggered up, grinning at his friends, and tried to do what Fitz had done. He couldn't budge it. He and one of his friends got it up a few inches, but not as high as Fitz had. They were humiliated and they took it out on the rest of us, but not on Fitz. He was left alone.
Back in town I decided I would have a drink at the Inn and a solitary meal and try to think of what the next step should be. I was picked up in front of the Inn, ten steps from my car.