The Dancers of Noyo by Margaret St. Clair

I persisted. "Why did the Dancer disarm its own men?" I asked.
     
                  "It's getting worse as it ages," he said unwillingly. "Ours is one of the oldest Dancers on the coast. Only the one at Navarro is older. As to what its particular motive was—well, it's been trying to import a couple of the chemical-conscience people to add to its bodyguard. We think that may be why it wanted to disarm everyone."
     
                  "I t hasn't got the chemical-conscience men yet?" I asked.
     
                  "No, we've managed to stop it so far." Tim shut his eyes again. Then he looked away from me, out over the sea.
     
                  "What happens if your Dancer does get its chemical henchmen?" I asked.
     
                  "We're not sure. We're frightened. But we don't know."
     
                  I thought of Gee-Gee, at Russian Gulch. She hadn't known either. "Maybe some of your Dancer's ideas are a little too raw for its bodyguard to carry out," I hazarded.
     
                  "Could be," Tim said.
     
                  "... I should think you people would be making new bows to take the place of those your Dancer took," I said.
     
                  "Um."
     
                  "Well, I certainly could use a bow," I said.
     
                  "If we were making bows," Tim answered, in an outburst of talkativeness, "we wouldn't give you one. You only want it to shoot animals with."
     
                  "I'm as much opposed to the Dancers as you are," I answered. Even as I spoke I recognized the hollowness of the words.
     
                  Tim laughed. "Sorry, but I've seen too many fair-weather friends to give you one of our precious bows. There's a way out open to you—all you have to do is keep on going down Highway One until you get to Bodega, and you're out of the tribes' jurisdiction.
     
                  "I won't blame you if you do it. Your tribe hasn't had a Dancer long enough for the situation to get serious. But I'm not going to give you a bow."
     
                  I was getting sore. Tim might be right—I didn't think he was—but he was too supercilious about it: "This is my fight too," I said. "The Noyo Dancer tried to wreck my mind. As far as that goes, have you made the Grail Journey yourself?"
     
                  "Faked it," Tim answered laconically.
     
                  "Then you haven't any right to exclude me from your struggle on the ground that I'd be a fair-weather friend. The Noyo Dancer picked me out to make an example of. It's an experience that changes a person."
     
                  "Um." We had been walking along while we talked, and were now standing on the sand at the river mouth, well away from any of the others. Tim closed his eyes again—it was an annoying mannerism—and thought. Then he looked at me appraisingly. "OK," he said. "I do have a bow I've been working on. If you can string it, you can have it."
     
                  "Fair enough," I said.
     
                  He led me along the sand to a cluster of rocks. After some clambering, he came down with a bow in his hand. "Here," he said as he gave it to me. "Don't worry about it's being soft from the damp. I used waterproof glue."
     
                  It was quite a small bow, the sort of thing a ten-year-old boy in the Noyo tribe might have had to practice shooting with. It was, in fact, almost insultingly small, and I wondered for a moment whether Tim was putting me on. I must have looked bewildered.
     
                  "Go on, string it," Tim said. "It's not as easy as it looks."
     
                  Full of confidence, I put a foot on one end of the bow and pulled the string toward the other. Tim was watching me with folded arms.
     
                  It ought