When we get there, he looks up. He’s a good-looking man, my father, although this morning, he’s defeated. He’s broken.

‘Thought I’d get down here early,’ he says. ‘This is about the time I normally start work.’

All of us stand around him.

In the end, it’s Steve who speaks. He says, ‘Hi Dad.’

Dad smiles. ‘Hi Steven.’

That’s all there is. No more words. Not like you might expect. That’s all of it, except that we all know we won’t let him do it. Dad knows it too.

He stands up and we resume the fight.

When we walk back, Rube stops at one point. I wait with him. We watch the others walk.

Rube speaks.

‘See,’ he says. ‘That’s Fighting Clifford Wolfe.’ He points. ‘That’s Fighting Mrs Wolfe and Fighting Sarah Wolfe. Hell, these days, that’s even Fighting Steven Wolfe. And you’re Fighting Cameron Wolfe.’

‘What about you?’ I ask my brother.

‘Me?’ he wonders. ‘I’ve been given the name, but I don’t know.’ He looks right at me and says truth. ‘I’ve got some fear of my own, Cam.’

‘Of what?’

What can he be afraid of?

‘What will I do when a fight comes along that I might lose?’

So that’s it.

Rube’s a winner.

He doesn’t want to be.

He wants to be a fighter first.

Like us.

To fight a fight he might lose.

I answer his question, to assure him.

‘You’ll fight anyway, just like us.’

‘Y’ reckon?’

But neither of us knows, because a fight’s worth nothing if you know from the start that you’re going to win it. It’s the ones in between that test you. They’re the ones that bring questions with them.

Rube hasn’t been in a fight yet. Not a real one.

‘When it comes along, will I stand up?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know,’ I admit.

He’d rather be a fighter a thousand times over among the Wolfe pack than be a winner once in the world.

‘Tell me how to do it,’ he begs. ‘Tell me.’ But we both understand that some things can’t be told or taught. A fighter can be a winner, but that doesn’t make a winner a fighter.

‘Hey Rube.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why can’t y’ be happy bein’ a winner?’

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘I don’t know.’ He goes over it. ‘Actually, I do know.’

‘Well?’

‘Well first, if you’re a Wolfe, you should be able to fight. Second, there’s only so long you can win for, because someone can always beat you.’ He draws a breath. ‘On the other hand, if you learn how to fight, you can fight forever, even when you get belted.’

‘Unless you give up.’

‘Yeah, but anyone can stop you being a winner. Only you yourself can make you stop fighting.’

‘I s’pose.’