JIM HARRISON

Warlock

Copyright

Artwork by Russell Chatham

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First published by Delacorte Press in 1981

Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in the United States of America

First Grove Atlantic edition: March 2019

This book was set in 12 pt Cochin by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

ISBN 978-0-8021-2915-4

eISBN 978-0-8021-4701-1

Grove Press

an imprint of Grove Atlantic

154 West 14th Street

New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

groveatlantic.com

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Dedication

BOB DATILLA

PART I

… I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream…. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.

… It shall be called “Bottom’s Dream,” because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play … to make the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.

WM. SHAKESPEARE

A Midsummer-Night’s Dream

act 4, scene 1

Chapter 1

Seven years came and went. But then we seem always in a state of getting ready for something that never quite occurs. Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, brother John, brother John? O mother brother sister father time: sidereal time, time for a drink, time for dinner, to get up, sit down, time for grace, time to make love, for zippers and the lifting of skirts: the baby emerged December 11, 1937, at 12:11:37 A.M., the same time that a piece of meteorite killed an elephant in distant Tanzania, Hitler brushed his teeth with some vigor, Einstein yawned.