One by one, all of us blew into it and then waited for Hurst to finish whatever notes he was writing down.
“Do you think he’s working on the Da Vinci code?” Dad whispered to us, snickering at his own joke.
Then again, it might not be a joke. Who knew what the guy was doing from one minute to the next.
Finally, after a couple of minutes, he nodded and looked up at us. “Okay, you’ve all passed the breathalyzer, including my grandsons and son. Too many accidents happen when people use guns with alcohol and other substances in their systems, and the point of today is to relax and have fun, not head to the ER with a gun-related injury or death.”
That might just be the most responsible and wisest thing I’d ever heard the man say.
“Now, years ago, we came up with a golf game with a twist. It all came about as the boys were learning about gun safety, responsibility, and shooting precision. They’d already mastered hitting the middle of a target, but I wanted to go the extra mile and make sure they could do that with more movement involved.”
He looked across the group with a smile that made me wary. “I had an old oil barrel full of golf balls with cracks and chips in them. Outside of the golf course I used to be a member of was a homeless man who sold them so he could eat. Of course, no one wants broken golf balls, so the poor guy was starving.”
“Gramps bought the guy’s whole bucket each time he went and paid him way over what he was asking for them,” Ren told us, smiling at his granddad. “He’s a sucker for shit like that.”
“The poor man was starving, boy. I quit going to that course because the manager thought he was being fucking funny giving him the broken balls that were retrieved, knowing full well he’d never sell them.”
Raising his hand in the air like a kid, Mark asked, “So, how did you keep buying them if you didn’t go to the course anymore?”
“I drove out there every day and picked up what he had,” Hurst replied. “He had enough money to move into a trailer in Bypass Park last year, and now he sells scrap car parts online to people who need them and either don’t want to pay for a new one or who can’t find them because the part’s a rare one.”
And this was why people looked up to the man and had been ecstatic when he’d become mayor. He looked at everyone equally and went out of his way to help them out, even if they didn’t know they needed it. The world needed more Hursts, but perfection was hard to find.
Scanning the group, he added, “There’s a new guy there doing the same thing, so if any of y’all ever pass the course, maybe think about buying some off him.”
I’d be doing that, and judging by the looks on the other guy’s faces, they would be too. Life was hard enough, and doing something like this had a bigger impact on people than we realized.
“Anyway,” Hurst clapped his hands together, almost making me jump, “enough about that. Onto the game of Shooting Range and what it is. We’re going to split into two teams—one for shooting, one for wielding the golf club.”
“This sounds like the sort of case I’m hoping I don’t ever see,” Reid whispered to me, making me grin.
“Once everyone’s had a shot—literally,” Hurst chuckled, “we’ll swap and then go through it again. The team with the highest amount of hits will be the winners.”
“Wait,” Jarrod called. “You’re saying one of us hits the golf ball for the other team to shoot at?”
“I am.”
“We’ve all been able to hit it in the past,” Cole told us as he opened a box of ammunition. “It’s like clay pigeon shooting, just with a smaller target.”
“Much smaller,” Tom said, laughing as he looked at our shocked expressions.
Spinning around, Canon rubbed his hands together. “Okay, the goal is to have as many Townsends on our team as possible. We’re all accurate with our shooting, thanks to Dad, but I don’t know how well we’ll do with it being a golf ball. They are, though, so if we want to win this, we go with them as our golden tickets.”
Rubbing my face with both hands, I groaned. What we were about to do was one of the weirdest things I’d ever been part of, and I’d done some seriously dumb shit over the years, so that said something.
“Don’t worry about picking who’s in your group,” Hurst shouted. “I’ve done it for you. Before we begin, you need to practice trying to hit it. Cole, load the rifle. Ren, set up the tees and the balls, please.”