Dance With the Devil

Chetwynd, BC, CAN

I grew up hearing all sorts of stories. One is from back in the 1940's about a man who went to one of the local pubs at the time, he was very tall, didn't speak much, but well mannered when he did, he wore a long overcoat, with a wide brimmed hat, and his steps would come with a click. He just sat at the bar mostly silent and sometimes he would dance with people, he would dance with somebody a while, then he would dance three circles around the person. After he had started coming to the pub people started to go missing on occasion.

My grandfather and his friends started to pay attention to the people in the pub. This man with the wide brim hat became a person of interest to the group and they started watching him, they watched him dance, he made three circles around the next person. That person ended up disappearing. A couple days later they were at the pub and this man walked in, wearing his overcoat and hat. He sat at the bar like he always would and when he got up to dance my grandfather and company got up too and stopped him, asking him to leave. The man obliged and started walking away.

As he opened the door to the pub a breeze blew his coat up at the feet. My grandfathers friend noticed something strange about the man. He whispered to my grandfather that the man had hooves, my grandfather looked closely as the the man left the building and sure enough the man had hooves. My grandfather and his friends followed this man and when they were far enough away from the pub they ran up to the man surrounding him and attacked him. The man opened his overcoat revealing that he had the legs of a goat. My grandfather and his friends killed the creature, apparently chopped it up and then burried it in a cloth bag. In the forest.

When I was born the town had expanded and the place where my grandfather burried the remains of that creature was now a part of the town, and he said that where one of my friends lived is where he burried it.