Then he realized that his astral body wore no glasses, and saw perfectly well without them. Moreover this body had, without a direct order from its occupant, risen from the table and stridden halfway across to the nucleus of the developing fight. By the time he got it under control, it was squaring off in front of one of the furry gentlemen.
Because of his mundane body's myopia, Prosper Nash had not been in a fight since childhood, and he had no wish to get involved in one now. Neither did he want to back down in front of the bearskinned barbarian.
The latter soon made up his mind for him by launching a roundhouse swing. Nash was vaguely aware of a violent shock somewhere about his person, and then of slugging back.
A bottle bounced off the furry gentleman's head with a hollow sound, and the blond smiled a kind of sickly smile and sank down to the floor. Nash looked in the direction from which the bottle had come, just in time to duck another. The bartender was loosing them impartially at the heads of the brawlers, who now comprised all the men in the place.
The samurai was still hovering with his dagger. Nash took a step toward him and swung a mighty punch. But something warned the Japanese knight; he spun around and caught Nash's wrist with a smack. The next thing Nash knew he was poised in midair across the fellow's shoulders, and the floor came up and hit him with force enough to stun an elephant.
Nash lay for a second, wondering which bones were broken; then as the dagger flashed into his vision he scrambled up, delighted to find that this new body was apparently made of steel springs and rubber bands. Somebody grabbed him from behind. Nash snapped his head back against the man's nose; his captor howled, but tightened his grip. The samurai glided forward and drew back his arm for a clean, smooth stab.
In a last look around for help, Nash saw something that would have been funny if he had been able to appreciate it. The matador was sitting on the chest of the man in plate armor, and pouring the contents of a bottle into the face opening of his helmet.
"Aw right, you ring-tailed galoots!" cried a voice from the entrance."Reach!"
The sounds of battle died, and hands rose, including those of Nash's assailants. Nash, free, looked to the door, which was filled by a man in cowboy clothes including the largest hat and the widest chaparajos Nash had ever seen. The newcomer covered the room with a pair of revolvers. The face under the sombrero was unmistakably that of Hackman William Averoff.
"Bill!" cried Nash.
"Git your hands up, too, mister," replied the cowboy with no sign of recognition. The pile of men in the middle of the floor disentangled itself, and a much battered Canadian Mounted Policeman crawled out from under. The cowboy asked: "Did they hoit you, partner?"
"Not much," replied the Mounty, flexing his joints experimentally.
The bartender spoke up: "Get out, all of ye! This is neutral territory, and I don't want any customers who can't remember that."
Nash approached the cowboy."Aren't you Bill Averoff?"
"Yep; Arizona Bill Averoff."
"Well, don't you know me? I'm Prosper Nash."
The cowboy looked at him carefully."No, Frenchy, I don't."
Nash remembered that the body he inhabited was not his own, or at least was not his usual one."Don't you know a guy named Nash?"
"Never hoid of him."
"He's all right," broke in the Mounty."He was the first one to try to help me."
"Arizona, me lad," said the bartender, "chase 'em out, will ye? I gotta clean up the joint."
The customers shuffled toward the exit. Arizona Bill Averoff put his head through the open section of the check-room door, and called: "Hey, miss! Reckon you can come up for air."
The check-room girl made a nervous appearance and began handing the customers their effects. The Mounty got his revolver. The samurai got a two-handed sword, which he stuck through, his sash, and a hat shaped like an inverted salad bowl, with a ribbon which he tied under his chin.
The furry gentlemen got broadswords and helmets with wings sprouting from them. One of this pair had a swollen and bloody mouth. Seeing it, Nash became aware of a tingle in his right hand, and found that the knuckles were bruised and cut. He also discovered a tender spot on the side of his jaw. Evidently he and his opponent had landed one good one apiece, though he had no clear recollection of the event.
"You got a check, mister?" asked Averoff.
Nash remembered the little square of green cardboard in his money belt. It obtained for him a pair of fancy leather gloves, a rapier, and a wide-brimmed leather hat. The brim was pinned up on the left, Anzacwise, and an ostrich feather stuck aft from between the turned-up part of the brim and the crown.
Outside, the crowd dispersed slowly, some of them, especially the furry gentlemen, lowering back as they departed. Arizona Bill Averoff kept his pistols out until the last rioter had disappeared. Then he bolstered them, and he and the redcoat unhitched a pair of horses from a rail on the curb.
"Ain't you goin' home, Frenchy?" he asked in a marked manner.
"Well," said Nash, "you see, I don't know where my home is."
"Lost? Thought you looked kinda doubtful. What part of town are you tryin' to find?"
"I don't know that, either. Is this New York City?"
The cowboy whistled."Say, didn't you even know what town you were in? Reckon you are lost."
"Reckon I am," said Nash with a ghost of a smile."Is it?"
"Yeah."
"Have you been sick or something?" asked the Mounty.
"Call it lapse of memory," said Nash."I'd like to—" He stopped as a distant but sharp sound broke into his sentence; then another, and a rattle of them.
"Who's shooting?" he asked.
"Oh," said the Mounty, "I suppose the Arries sent a patrol down into loyal territory, and got caught."
"What," asked Nash, "are Arries?"
"Aryans. Wotanists. Like those two who jumped me tonight. I say, don't you know anything?"
The cowboy spoke in fatherly fashion: "Reckon you need a good night's sleep, mister. Then tomorrow, if you still don't know where you are, you mosey over to a public library and find out. Come along, Jim."
"But," cried Nash, "if this is New York, and you're Bill Averoff, you ought to know me—"
"Shore is too bad, partner, but I don't. So long." Nash's two companions swung into their saddles and clattered off into the dark
Nash stood uncertainly in the street, which was illuminated only by lights from a few of the windows. Aside from these yellow rectangles hanging suspended in blackness, there was little to be made out. As Nash's eyes got used to the darkness, they picked out by starlight a few more features, such as an irregular and broken line of roofs, and a tree in what appeared to be a front yard. Nash, who was an indefatigable explorer of his mundane self's adopted city, knew that the only place in Manhattan where front yards were to be found was the Chelsea district. It did not necessarily follow that the same restriction applied to the astral plane's New York.
Pop, went the gunfire far away, and pop-pop-pop. He guessed from what the Royal Canadian had said that there was some local war on. Prosper Nash listened, then strode firmly—away from the sounds of combat.
The popping detonations died away. Nash's high uncushioned heels rang loudly on the pavement; too loudly. He realized the lack of the whir of motor vehicles, which forms a continuous undertone day and night to the sounds of mundane New York. In some neighboring street, hoofs plop-plopped; then this minor sonic competition sank to inaudibility.
The lighted windows were fewer now. If he had more nerve, thought Nash, he'd knock on one of these doors and ask for a night's lodging. Why not? But as he passed each one he found some excuse for not doing so; this one looked like too small a place; the next had such a shabby appearance, from the little he could make out, that goodness knew what sort of people lived there—