“. . . the pattern of our lives remained the same. Sleep a little, eat a little, and guard the fort with our lives. For if we did not, our lives and those we held dearest would be forfeited to the enemy outside our walls.”
Although I wrote these words in reference to the 1778 siege of Boonesborough, they hold just as true today, as I sit in my upstairs office, looking out over the Kentucky landscape. I am here, with my husband and 98-year-old mother-in-law, staying safe on our property, staying inside our little enclave, not venturing out into a world infected with Covid-19.
When we came home to Kentucky six years ago, after a long absence, we found property at the bottom of a knob, built a frontier-style log cabin, and called our place Button Lick Station, Button Lick for the nearby knob and station for the name given to the many forts and fortified cabins in frontier Kentucky. I’ve read about and studied the attacks on Logan’s Fort, Ruddle’s Station, Martin’s Station, and Bryan’s Station. I know the outcome of each. Now in 2020, Button Lick Station is under attack and the outcome is still unknown.
While there are no enemies firing bullets into my log home or shooting fire arrows at us across the darkness of each night, I still sense the isolation, the anxiety, and the worry over what the future might bring. Sometimes the fear for my loved ones seems just as real as Jemima’s. Days have passed, almost sixty, yet we’ll be here a while longer, hunkered down, avoiding society, practicing social distancing.
For now, we are besieged by an invisible enemy. Some days, I wish it were an enemy I could see, hear, and smell – instead, our foe in this battle is killed with disinfectants, handwashing, and sunshine. It is just as deadly, if not more so than the attackers at Fort Boonesborough.
Someday, just as the Indians left Boonesborough under the cover of darkness, the virus will seem to sneak away. Like those pioneer Kentuckians, we will leave our homes and venture out to tend our crops and livestock, gather firewood in the forests, visit friends and family, and resume our lives. And like the pioneers, we will need to stay ever vigilant for our enemy may only be hiding behind the nearby trees, invisible to sight, but still deadly to those who fail to take notice of their surroundings.