Correlation Is Not Causation, Doc. But It Is Correlation.

my chart. the dip is when he got the alternator.

Regular readers know the parish paper ran a story in June: Rougarou sightings in Le Marais Perdu down forty percent since a local man known as Thib got his truck fixed. I laughed. I want to be honest with you, I laughed. I filed it under the paper being the paper.

This week the paper ran the follow-up. Thib's truck threw a belt on the levee road. Sightings are up forty percent.

I went back through my own files, which go to 2007, and matched every rougarou report I have ever received from that village against every time that truck has been in a shop. I had to ask around for the shop dates. People were very helpful. One mechanic gave me eleven years of invoices in a grocery sack and asked me not to bring it back.

The chart is above. I drew it by hand. The two lines move together like they are dancing. When the truck runs, the reports fall off. When the truck is down, they climb.

The Chronicle's readers think the answer is obvious: when his truck is broken, Thib walks the levee road, Thib is a big man who needs a haircut, people see Thib. The front-page poll has that position winning by a mile.

Friends, I have met Thib. He is a gentle, talkative man who answered my questions for two hours. He is not seven feet tall.

Here is my read, and stay with me: the Rougarou does not show up when Thib's truck is broken. The Rougarou needs the truck. When the truck runs, it is driving. When the truck is in the shop, it has to walk like everybody else, and people see it walking.

I asked Thib, very carefully, who else has keys. He said his sister. I asked who else. He said "you mean the spare," and then talked for another hour about carburetors, and I never did get back to it.

I relay. You decide.

In Truth and Terror.
— Beau