The man hurried to the center of The Village's plaza, snatched up the leather headed mallet, and began pounding on the big bell, hollering in between gongs, "Inside! Inside! It's coming!"
From all about, men and women hurried to gather their children and hustle them inside the buildings clustered about the plaza. Workers in the fields dropped their hand tools at the end of rows and ran for the Village.
Johan Dent did the opposite of the others, leaving his cabin and moving out into the open of the plaza. He took over the bell ringing, sending the man to care for his own family. He watched the progress with pride: every member of The Family understood the danger approaching and did his or her best to get to their homes quickly, snatching up small children as they went, delivering them to the proper log cabin. It was a precision operation.
As he watched, the Head of each family stood at his or her cabin's door, waiting for each and every family member to be accounted for. Once they were certain of the safety of their spouses and children, they dropped a little red flag over the doorway and followed inside as well, where they ensured the entire family was in the cabin's root cellar.
Eventually, Johan was the only member of The Village not safely hidden away in a root cellar. He drew a relieved breath, enjoying the smell of the grass pollens and rabbits smoking over an open fire. He ambled slowly across the plaza, taking in the view of the hand built log cabins, the hand tilled fields of grains, the hand weaved rugs and blankets airing on hand built pole hanging lines.
He reached the edge of the village just as movement high above caught his attention. He shaded his eyes with a wrinkled, cragged hand and watched as it passed overhead, turning this way, then that, before heading off to the west. A few seconds later, its roar reached Johan's ears. He turned and looked back to the cabins, more out of habit than out of true concern; he knew the Village's children, who would be reciting prayers with their parents, wouldn't hear the noise from above.
He waited until it was gone, then ambled back to his own cabin. Inside, he sat at the fir plank table, in the bent wood chair the Children had presented to him for his 60th birthday two years earlier. He opened the leather bound journal before him, lifted and inked a quill pen, and wrote on the hemp page, "Dragon. Fourth time this Year. All safe. Gods be praised."
He left the book open to allow the ink to dry, then made his way to one of his two root cellars -- the one no one but the Elders knew existed -- and dropped into a leather and metal office chair before a computer screen that showed an image being received via a satellite phone connection; it showed the same flight control screen that the controllers at the military air base three hundred miles away were watching at this very moment. A single dot on the screen -- heading west, one blip at a time -- represented the military jet that had sent the Family scurrying for cover.
Johan tapped at the keyboard with two fingers. "Thank you for heads up. What went wrong?"
A moment later, a reply informed him, "Military exercise. Mission was above my pay grade. Did not have clearance. Was not informed. Could not prevent. Sorry. Got them all inside?"
"Yes," Johan answered simply, finishing, "Clear."
"Clear," appeared at the bottom of the box.
Johan sat back in the chair; its metal parts squealed, grating his nerves even more so that having such a close call with The Outside World. Twenty years, he thought to himself. Twenty years we have protected this secret. Getting harder.
He returned to the cabin's main floor, prepared and ate a small lunch, then changed into his long, black robe. He made his way to the plaza again, gonging the all clear. The first faces to appear were, of course, the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, followed by the others.
Within a few minutes, all were gathered about Grand Elder Johan Dent in the middle of the brick plaza, hands linked, praying to the Gods for protecting them from the Dragon on High, which roamed the forest surrounding the village, preventing them from ever leaving The Village.
