#rougaroux

An oil lamp on either end of the boat and the high full moon were the only sources of light that night, and under the cypress sentinels of the bayou they afforded little visibility. Standing at the bow, a rifle cradled in his arms is a hunter, renowned the world over for his courage and steady aim. Behind him, a guide native to this land but ill at ease in his home, eyes flitting about as he plied the oars. This primordial place was unwelcoming to humankind in the daylight, and by the light of the moon it was wholly the realm of beasts and worse.

These men had struck out on their midnight trek into the oppressively hot Louisiana summer night in search of worse. The hunter already had scores of pelts and trophies lining the walls of his homes and was tired of the mundane hunt. He sought a legend to skin and mount. The guide only wanted peace for his people, who were terrorized by moonlight attacks and believed that the hunter could provide it to them. The night had its own agenda. 

Pinpoints and coins of various sizes glowed in pairs just above the waterline, barely outside the warm luminescence of burning whale oil. A cold blooded gathering, silent in their observation. The croak and splash of fist sized bullfrogs was underscored by the gurgling scrape of soft belly scales sliding down muddy banks to near-silently splash down into the murk and joining the other reflecting eyes that surrounded the boat by the dozens. These juveniles watched from a distance, only observing. Like they knew they were in for a show.

Far off in the unseen, a mature bull roared at some encroachment, and the smaller gators in the water fled instinctively from the mere suggestion of the larger male. Farther still, another bull roared but the sound was… wrong. Pained. Angry. Much louder than it should have been from such an obvious distance. A cold spike of fear shot through both men. This place was a transplant from a more primitive time, before apes climbed down from the trees to first conceive of the knife and the spear. They were out of place.

The hunter knew this, he had been out of place most of his days in some hostile clime or mysterious locale, but had always felt every bit the predator no matter where he tracked his quarry. Now was not that case, and as the final shreds of the unnatural roar faded into the distance his racing heart had him idly wondering after the fear he saw in his prey’s eyes.

The guide thought little of the past as he navigated deeper into the dark heart of the bayou. His mind was on the present, and his eyes were moving, searching for the monster the  guide knew to prowl the deepest parts of the swamp when it was not killing and eating his fellow villagers. The guide could not describe it himself, using only secondhand details.

The broken snatches of visuals illustrated something horrifying, and unnatural. Any who saw the monster directly did not live to tell the tale. From the few who saw something, the claims were… disquieting. A mouth wide enough to swallow children whole, bristling with needle tipped yellow teeth and sitting below unblinking eyes the size of teacups which reflected firelight so brightly they could have been lamps themselves. The ferocity of the attacks left blood and viscera splashed high on ceilings and in trees. The most any one person had seen and lived to describe was a vast expanse of back as it had fed on someone already dead. A mishmash of greens and browns shot through with the darkest shades, like a newborn gator what just lost its egg tooth.

A rougaroux is what the old Cajun woman had named the creature when the guide had described the habits and look of it, although it was no wolf as legend usually dictated in the old world. She claimed it had once been a man, cursed by birth or misdeed to transform by the light of the full moon. The guide was Choctaw by birth and knew little of the white man's witchcraft, but the Cajun woman had proven herself honest and knowledgeable before so when she had described the weaknesses of the beast he had melted down his mothers silver into a handful of bullets.