Cay felt troubled as she heading toward McCloskey's to meet up with Rufus. She was thinking about Frank Montana and the pained look of his daughter's face when she realized that he was out of jail. She wondered if Eliah ever had a chance to see her father before he was killed. She pushed open the door and the darkness and warmth of her favorite watering hole brought her scant relief.

"How are you today?" she heard a deep baritone ringing out at the bar. Despite her depression, Cay grinned.

"Fine, Mr. Jonathon. Thank you for asking."

Mr. Jonathan, the old blues musician and a McCloskey's regular, was sitting at the bar next to Rufus. He was wearing a black and white check polyester jacket with piano keys marking the lapels.

Steve McCloskey was already pulling a beer for Cayenne. He set it on the bar as a light froth escaped over the lip and slide down the side of the glass. "Darn it, girl. Don't death just follow you around during this season?"

"You heard. Did you know Frank Montana?" Cay asked as she sat herself down on the other side of Rufus.

Cay saw a look pass among the three men, and Steve nodded then moved away. "I'll leave y'all to chat."

Rufus and Mr. Jonathan were in glum moods. Rufus, a solidly built black man still dressed in his detective's suit, seemed in no hurry to start questioning her. So she picked up her beer and tapped it to his.

"To Frank Montana."

He tapped it back. "To Mo."

"You said this was personal?"

Mr. Jonathon jumped right into the conversation. "It sho' is personal. You take down a Yellow Mag and it don't matter how old we all are, the tribe has gots to make it right."

Cay's eyes widen. She stared at Rufus.

"You were in the Yellow Magnolias?"

Mr. Jonathan again answered instead of Rufus. "Hell, yes, until he decided to become a poh-lice man. Heh, heh, heh," he slapped Rufus on the back. "Little did we know how good it was going to be to have someone on the inside."

Again, Cayenne tried to get a response out of Rufus.

"You masked with Frank?"

"I don't do that any more. Those were bad times and people got hurt."

Mr. Jonathon jumped in again. "Rufus here was Flag Boy. Me, now I was Spy Boy and we made quite a team. Mo would never decide the route but for the day of the parade. I would run up ahead and scout out where the other tribes where and send the signal back to Flag Boy here." He gestured at Rufus. "Flag Boy would signal back to Mo and we would change the route of the parade depending on whether we wanted to call them out or not."

Mr. Jonathon stop long enough to take a sip of beer. Rufus still didn't say anything. "Now Rufus started out as Wild Man, but our man here was too soft hearted to ever be any good at scaring people, especially the good people, so Mo put him on Flag because that was more law and orderly. "

"Me, now I was Spy Boy. That is a fine place to be in the march because everyone depend on you to find a battle. Lots of musicians been Spy Boys. Louis Armstrong was one. So was Jelly Roll Morton. "

"But I thought Louis Armstrong was a Zulu," Cay said.

Rufus finally spoke. "Before there were the Zulus, there were the Indians."

"Damn right," Mr. Jonathan said. His black and white coat glowed in the lights of the dim bar.

"You know anything about this headdress that Mr. Montana wanted delivered to his daughter?" Cay asked.

Another hard look passed between the two former Magnolias. Then nothing. Silence. Cay was afraid Mr. Jonathon would begin his history lesson again, but he sat still, directing his attention to smoothing his coat with the gentlest of movements. Then Rufus spoke up.

"I'm supposed to be asking the questions. Tell me everything that happened between you and Mo." He reached into his pocket for his detective pad.

She told him how Frank Montana came into the office that day to request her services to deliver the packet and how she tracked down Eliah Montana at the Casino. She told him about Raynaldo and his strange behavior at Dash's. She told Rufus about delivering the box, the note from Frank, and how his daughter didn't seem to know that he had been released from jail. She didn't tell him about Mambozo making humbah because Mr. Jonathan was hanging on every word.

"Do you know a Mr. Dumont LaTourne?" She offered instead. "He called me and asked me if I knew how to reach the Yellow Mags. He indicated strongly that the Yellow Magnolias had stolen that headdress and that it rightfully belonged in his museum. I think he was fishing around to see what I knew."

"Did you tell him you had it?"

"I told him, truthfully, that I would not want to be caught with stolen property. Anyway, his daughter has it now and she didn't know anything about LaTourne." Cay paused. "But I think her boyfriend does."

Rufus wrote down the information, "There wasn't a phone in Mo's apartment so no way of knowing if either she or the boyfriend tried to get a hold of him. Or LaTourne. We'll talk to them all."

Mr. Jonathon spit on the floor. "LaTourne! That headdress has been in Frank's family since the Mags started back in 1890. That's over a hundred years. Some say it goes back even further. I don't think that LaTourne and that little coon ass museum of his was around back then."

Rufus waved at Mr. Jonathan to calm him down. "The headdress belonged to Frank, though Dumont was able to produce a bill of sale for it when the guard was found dead."

"The man that Frank killed?"

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air. Once again, Cayenne felt like she was picking her way through an active minefield.

"What was so special about that headdress?" She tried a different tack.

Rufus, thankfully, answered this time. "That headdress meant something special to Mo. It was in his family for over a hundred years. Mo used to say that the headdress went back to the beginning of the Yellow Mags and would be the future as long as a member of the Montana family wore it.

"The tradition is to tear down your suit every year and build a completely new one. You use the same material, but no one knows what it is going to look like, except your family and maybe some of the tribe who help you get dressed. Frank would sew the prettiest most colorful outfits. He would start right after Mardi Gras and pulled in the brightest yellow and orange and green feathers. He would bead these patches that could make you cry: eagles, fires, Indians, but always a yellow Magnolia somewhere in the outfit. And jewels. He'd have a million of those fake diamonds, rubies and emeralds. But no matter how pretty the suit was, he insisted on working in that old ratty headdress some way. He would fix it up a little different each time, paint the jewels to match his feathers, add a medallion or two, and sew some new beads. Sometimes he's replace some of the feathers and paint some of the trim, but he treated that headdress like it was the crown sitting on King Tut's head." Rufus choked up a bit, and removed the blockage in his throat with a sip of beer.

" 'My inheritance, Rufus'. He used to say strutting around like a peacock. 'My daddy's daddy and his daddies before.' "

"And now he has passed it on to his daughter," Cay murmured to herself.

Mr. Jonathon jumped right back in, ignoring Cays comment. " Other tribes used to laugh at that old Rat Ball headdress and call us out to make war. But Frank, " and Mr. Jonathan pointed at Rufus, "and the rest of us, we was tough. Weren't no one who could make us humbah."

Rufus laughed and slapped Mr. Jonathan's hand, "Heh, heh, heh. We were the prettiest and the baddest." Rufus looked into his beer and turned somber again.

"Frank." Mr. Jonathon said. " He was the Big Chief. Weren't no one could talk him down. Even that rap he took at Angola didn't back him down. He wanted the Yellow Magnolias to march again this season. And now, some bastard got him down."

Rufus put his beer back on the bar for Steve to fill up. "We'll get him, JoJo. We'll get him."

"So how did Frank end up in Angola?" Cay tried again. "I heard he killed a man."

"Official word is that Mo killed a guard at LaTourne's museum and stole the headdress. Turned out the guard was an ex-Mag that drank too much and traded in the tribe's headdress for two bottles of fortified liquor. Frank confronted him and says the guy pulled a knife on him so he hit him in self defense. But no one found a knife, the headdress was gone, and the guy had a Berratta 9 mm slug in his chest. That's a little more than performing self-defense. "

Rufus paused, then continued. "LaTourne found the body. Said he saw someone fitting Mo's description fleeing from the scene. The gun was found in the street in the direction that Mo took off, wiped clean of prints. They found Frank hiding out in the storage area of a bodega. The guard died, but the jury couldn't find enough evidence to put him away for life. Case closed and he served his time for aggravated assault. " Rufus took a sip of beer. "That's how the police report reads."

"Something tells me you believe something else."

"Don't know, boo. Frank admits to stealing the headdress back from the museum but he says the guard was alive when he left. He said didn't even own a gun and that he was framed." He paused. "But every con in Angola says the same thing."

Cay could see that the cop inside Rufus was battling with the friend inside. Cay sat at the bar and could feel the palpable sorrow coming off of her dear policeman friend.

"We never found the headdress and I never wrote to Frank in jail." He took another long sip of beer. "I guess I never wanted to know if he was really guilty. Or innocent." A silence fell over the bar with just the clicking of glasses and the sounds of sipping filling the air.

That silence was broken when Mr. Jonathan slid off his bar stool and stood at attention. He began singing an odd kind of slow chant that almost sounded like a prayer.

"Mah ray kootie fay oh." His deep voice shook as it filled the bar with a lonely chant, and he slapped his hands in rhythm against the bar top.

As if unable to resist, Rufus also pushed himself away from the bar and stood to answer the call.

"Ee yah yay ee yah yay." He answered in response.

"Mah ray kootie fay oh." Mr. Jonathon called out again, pounding out the same rhythm.

"Ee yah yay ee yah yay." This time Steve added his bass voice to fill out the harmony.

Then the three men started to sing together.

We are the Yellow Magnolias, Yellow Magnolias
Indians of the Nation, the Yellow Magnolia Nation
We won't kneel down, not on the ground.
O how I love to hear them call my Indian Red

Mr. Jonathon called out again in a choked up single voice.

I got a Big Chief, Big Chief…
Big Chief of the Magnolias, The Magnolia Nation
He won't bow down, not on the ground
Oh how I love to hear them call my Indian Red.

Again, Rufus and Steve joined out, this time adding in ad libs and shouts. Cay was taken back to the Marching Arrows practice at Dash's. The rhythm was infectious even without the tambourines and the cowbells, with only a bar surface for a drum.

Jock a mo feen do, Hondo hondo (yeah, that's right)
In the morning, Hondo Hondo Hondo
In the evening, Hondo Hondo Hondo (the Mags are coming!)
All day long, Hondo Hondo Hondo!
The Big Chief wear a golden crown (we gonna kill 'em dead)
He won't bow down, not on the ground

Mah ray kootie fay oh (blood shiffa hoonah)
Ee yah yay ee yah yay.

There was silence in the bar when the song ended. Rufus wiped at his eyes and return to the bar stool. Mr. Jonathon and Steve stood in their respective places, reflectively.

"What was that song?" Cay had to ask, had to break the silence.

Rufus bowed his head. "It's a song called 'Indian Red.' It is a song of honor."

Mr. Jonathon found his way back to his stool. "Frank Montana was Big Chief of the Yellow Magnolias," he nodded and lifted his glass in toast. "We Yellow Mags sing it in his memory."

He clicked his glass to Rufus's. "Boonaro!"

"Damn right! " Rufus said, downing the rest of his beer and motioning Steve over for another one.

*****************************************************

Cay went to her office, despite the late hour. She was confused, and felt in a fog, the beer not withstanding. She thought she had this Mardi Gras thing all figured out, but these new, darker traditions had her confused. There was so much pain and death and history of racism in this funky world called New Orleans. Her home town of Chicago was a lot more outwardly racist than New Orleans in many ways, but this new wrinkle of underclass made her slightly nauseous. The tune of Indian Red was flowing through her head as she threw her keys down on the desk.

"City that Care Forgot. Bullshit! How about the City that Forgot to Care?" She plopped herself into her chair.

"Don't get too comfortable, mum," The sing song voice of Mambozo called out. She looked up to see him dressed in a darling sweater that she had just bought him for Christmas.

"You got a mighty important message on your recorder while you were out. We have just enough time to get there." He poked his beak at the playback button of her black answering machine.

A breathless, scared voice rang out. "Ms Del Roi. This is Eliah. You must help me! I have no where else to go. Meet me at the St. Louis #1 Cemetery tonight, at 10 o'clock Midnight, in the northwest corner. I'm being followed so be careful! You must help me!"

The phone clicked off. She glanced at her watch. It was 9:20 p.m.. She could make it just in time.

She grabbed her keys, and headed for the door. She heard a flutter behind her and was startled by the glowing eyes of Mambozo.

"I'm going with you."

Cay felt a little stupid. She was going into the dark, New Orleans night with a chicken to protect her. And somehow, she felt relieved.

Coming January 24, 2005:
CHAPTER SEVEN: Don't Those Bones Rattle And Roll

Copyright by Aileen M. McInnis, 2005. All Right Reserved.