Sweat beaded upon my nape as I remembered at least two prior occasions when the British sent agents to kidnap or assassinate my father. With damp palms, I squinted in the dim light of the fire, daring a glance at the faces around it, suspicious and mistrustful of everyone. I suppose Papa would be flattered to know he was, even stripped of command, still in their sights. But the marquis was the more valuable prize. “Do they mean to kill him?”
“I don’t know the plan,” she said. “Only that the British have put a target on his back, and the arrow man is near . . .”
*
“MADEMOISELLE, YOU ARE a most excellent patriot,” Lafayette said when I returned to the safety of Johnston Hall, where I reported everything.
To my surprise, the Frenchman seemed sanguine. “It is good you learn of all this in secret while all eyes were upon your father and me. You have been an essential asset to the cause.”
It was flattery—French flattery at that!—and I wanted to believe it was true.
But I was crestfallen at the certain failure of our mission, and worried, too.
“The British aren’t the only ones who have spies,” Papa said to reassure me. “I can say with confidence that the man they’ve sent to make trouble is Major Carleton, the nephew of the Canadian Governor. I suspected he was in the area incognito to suborn the Indians who are friendlier to us. Now we have better reason to think so.”
I bit my lower lip, thinking it quite a risk for such a prominent British officer and gentleman to take; even if he was not an assassin or kidnapper, if he was caught in disguise he could be hanged as a spy. And perhaps that’s what Lafayette had in mind when he said, “I shall offer a reward of fifty guineas to anyone who will bring him to me alive.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “And since there are Indians who are friendly to us, I will offer them, and only them, trading posts and protection.”
“But might not attempts to divide them further provoke those who are against us, ending our hopes to get the Six Nations to remain neutral?” I dared to ask.
Lafayette nodded. “If we cannot get neutrality, perhaps we get something better.”
At the next day’s council, the Indians were in an uproar, all pretense of accord abandoned. For the magnificent chieftain, Grasshopper, of the Oneida, rose to address the warrior class. “By refusing to make peace, you sow the seeds of your own destruction. You have forced us all to terrible choices. Now, instead of being strong as six arrows all together that cannot be broken, we are in splinters!”
Six arrows. The Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Mohawk, Oneida, and Tuscarora. Together, they’d formed a confederacy older than Great Britain.
The chief turned to my father. “The Oneida and Tuscarora will not remain neutral.” Amidst murmurs and shouts, I nearly gasped as Grasshopper raised his voice over the fray. “We say to our brethren, the Americans, that we, too, are a free people with absolute notions of liberty. And we will join your cause and pledge to be buried in the same graves with you or to share in the fruits of your victories and peace.”
The impact of the moment resounded in my bones.
I wasn’t alone. Lafayette didn’t hide his tears as he rose. “This man possesses the dignity of a Roman senator. The philosopher Rousseau speaks truly of man’s nobility in his state of nature. For here, as much as any place in America, has taught me that we are, all of us, and of right, to be free.”
That very day, the Oneida promised to send warriors to join Washington’s army at Valley Forge and a clan mother with white corn to help feed the starving soldiers, and teach them how to prepare it so they wouldn’t get sick from eating it dry.
We had meant to secure neutrality. Instead, we came away with allies, warriors, and food. Though Papa was wary, Lafayette thought it a triumph. Perhaps not as glorious as victory upon a battlefield, but a triumph that would redound to both Lafayette’s and Washington’s credit and help win the war.
As for me, I was so stunned by what had taken place that I allowed myself a sip of rum that night at the campfire when Lafayette offered it to me.
And then I coughed on it.
Which brought a guffaw from the Frenchman. “Do you dislike the taste of rum, Mademoiselle Schuyler?”
My eyes watered as I struggled to answer.
He laughed again. “You and I can speak candidly, now that we are kin. Nous sommes une famille, comme frère et soeur.”
“Pardon?” I asked, hoarsely.
“We are sister and brother, yes? Having been adopted by the Indians. We are both savages, you and me.” Lafayette said this word as if it were more glorious than his noble title. But then, as if fearing I didn’t understand, he added, “The Iroquois forests are peopled by my friends; to me, the despots of Europe are the true savages.” He leaned in with a grin. “After we leave this place, come to Washington’s headquarters at Valley Forge with me.”