Pirooters - Mellon

The Pirooters by Mark Mellon. Sierra Vista, AZ: Sundowners/Treble Heart Books, 2007.  213 pages ISBN: 978-1932695-66-3  $11.95 paperback http://www.mellonwritesagain.com/  http://www.trebleheartbooks.com/SDMellon.html   Life in 1916 San Antonio where the civilization has budded with the Battle of Flowers, motorcycles, and talk of renaming Kaiser Wilhelm district to King William is interrupted with long-separated Grandfather Virge Pargrew's retun and recollection of a post-bellum adventure with Indians, treasure, and rides beyond the Rio Grande to the Bolsom de Malpini. It's a ridin' and shoot 'em up.   Seems Virge and brother Heck and Old Mose, the freedman "as old as time," set out on a series of rip snorting cavortations with Comanches, bandits, and a few unappreciative Frenchmen troubling the crew who are after Jim Bowie's Santa Perdida treasure.  Mellow shows his realism as he recount the trio's decision to bury some bad guys, not out of sentiment, but out of practical caution, to keep the vultures from marking their location for El Guapo. Woven into the tale readers find the 1916 descendants' forgiveness for old Virge and welcome him back into the family fold.   Sources vary on what is "pirooting." Some describe it as making one's way down a muddy street, some call it whirling, others wandering.  The novel's back-flashing manner between 1916 and earlier times make the story a rootin' tootin' piroot of its own.