"You saying I should go back to my old life?"
"I'm saying you should take a good hard look at where you won't fit in."
"You kicking me off the reservation?"
Sunny Joe's voice softened. "You're welcome to visit any time. If you live long enough to retire, this is a good place to rest your weary bones, take it from one who knows. I aim to lay my Sun On Jo bones in this here red desert."
"I can't believe you're tossing me out of your life."
"I'm not, Remo. You think this through. I'm encouraging you back into the only life that fits you."
"I don't want to kill anymore."
"You didn't have that attitude at the start of this conversation. I don't think deep down it's who you really are."
"I don't know who I am anymore," Remo said in a bitter voice.
That night Remo visited his mother's grave. Laughing Brook was running high. It had been a baked-dry desert riverbed when Remo first came to the Sun On Jo Reservation. Three happy months ago. It seemed like an eternity. It had all gone by so fast.
He was alone for a long time, waiting. And somewhere in that waiting, Sunny Joe materialized beside him. There was no warning.
"What do you think she'd say?" Remo asked after a while.
"About what?"
"About me."
"Well, I reckon she'd be proud of her only son who grew up to be a fine-looking man who served his country."
"I'm an assassin."
"I was a soldier myself," Sunny Joe said.
"A soldier is different. I'm an assassin. Killing is like breathing to me."
"Then breathe."
Remo's mouth thinned. "Lately I've been calling myself a counterassassin because I thought it fit me better. I was wrong. I am what I am." Remo sucked in a hot breath. "And I don't belong here. I'm leaving in the morning."
Sunny Joe nodded in approval. "I appreciate what you tried to do."
"You didn't act it."
"Being a father is new to me. It's just that I like to do things for myself. Always have. You stepped into the private circle of an old warrior's pride."
Remo's eyes were fixed on his mother's headstone. "I wonder if I'll see her again."
"Doubt it. Her work is done. She laid her bones in the red sand long, long ago. But there was unfinished business, and she found the will and the way to finish it. Next time you meet, it'll be in the great beyond somewheres."
Remo set his teeth to keep his chin from trembling.
He felt Sunny Joe's big paw fall on his shoulder. "The way I see it, if she disapproved of your path in life, she wouldn't have found her way to your hogan."
"I've changed my mind," Remo said thickly. "I'm not waiting until morning. I'm going now."
"If it suits you."
"It suits me."
"Then let's saddle up together one last time, you and I."
They rode out in the clear, cool desert night, neither man speaking. The sky was full of bitter blue stars, and Remo looked at them, feeling a connection growing. It was that oneness Sinanju gave. He swelled with every intake of breath.
"Ever feel part of the universe?" he asked Sunny Joe.
"Sometimes. Mostly I feel like a grain of sand in the desert. And it suits me. I've had my fame. I prefer single-footing, like now."
"Sinanju connects you with everything," Remo said quietly.
"The spirit of Ko Jong Oh kinda does that, too."
They looked at the stars in silence. "It's none of my business," Remo said after a while, "but I meant to ask why you took off for Mexico."
"Nothing special. I just took a notion." Sunny Joe hung his head. "No, that's not it. Guess I was just feeling crowded, is all. Having you and the old chief here so long kinda got on my braves' nerves and they got on mine. Had to get away. Nothing personal."
"Thought you might have had a girlfriend down there."
Sunny Joe grunted. "I wish."
When they reached Remo's rented Jeep, they dismounted.
Sunny Joe took the reins of Remo's horse from him.
"I guess this is goodbye," said Remo.
"You came here with an empty heart and now you leave with a full one."
"My heart doesn't feel full," Remo admitted.
"Maybe because you're standing apart from the one who filled your heart in my absence."
Remo looked toward Red Ghost Butte, the moon shadows turning the hollows of his eyes into unfathomable caverns. His lips thinned.
"The little chief is probably pining away for you right now," Sunny Joe remarked.
"You don't know Chiun."
"You know, all my adult life I played different parts. Black hats. White hats. Hoods and pirates. I played just about every kind of role you could imagine." A wry smile crossed his seamed face. "Except one."
Remo looked back. "What's that?"
"They never did let me play a damn redskin. Said I didn't look the type."
A smile cracked Remo's stiff face. Sunny Joe clapped him on the back as his booming laughter filled the still air.
"Walk confidently upon your trail, son."
"I will."
They shook hands, their alike eyes read one another and that was that. Remo climbed into the Jeep and headed across the Sonoran Desert for Yuma.
He didn't look back. Not once.
And so missed the wind-eroded face of Sunny Joe Roam crumple into commingled lines of pain and pride.
Chapter Twelve
At the Yuma International Airport, the police tried to arrest Remo when he turned in his rental Jeep.
"This is a stolen vehicle," a deputy sheriff said in a voice abraded by the sand-bearing winds.
"No, it's not," Remo told him. "I rented it back in July. Now I'm returning it."
"We have an APB from the highest levels to apprehend and hold for questioning the driver of that Mazda Navajo, sir."
"That's gotta be my boss. Look, this is just a misunderstanding."
"Which we can straighten out down at the sheriff's office better than here."
"Can't it wait? I'm in a rush. Let me make a phone call," Remo pleaded.
"You're allowed one call. At the sheriff's office."
"If I make it here, we'll both save a wasted trip and I can still catch my flight."
The deputy laid one hand on the butt of his holstered side arm. "At the sheriff's office."
"You're arresting me?"
"That's a fact."
Sighing, Remo extended his thick wrists. With a jingling the deputy sheriff's handcuffs came out and snapped shut. Over his own stunned wrists.
"What the hell?" he yelped.
Remo held his Remo Durock, FBI, card in front of the deputy sheriff's hot eyes and said, "You're under arrest."
"You can't arrest me."
"Just did. I'm an FBI agent and you're only local law. I outrank you."
"On what charge?" the deputy asked, incredulous.
"Obstructing justice."
"Prove it."
"Tell it to a federal magistrate," Remo said soberly. "Now, come on. We're going to do this my way."
At a pay phone Remo leaned his thumb on the 1 button until the lemony voice of Harold W. Smith came on the line.
"Remo?"
"You put out an all-points on me?" Remo asked.
"I did. Where are you?"
"That's classified until that APB is rescinded."
"My computers indicate you are in Yuma, Arizona, Remo."
"You want me here or there?"
"I will rescind the APB. Return to Folcroft. We have a problem."
"What do you mean 'we,' paleface?"
Smith cleared his throat. "Master Chiun has informed me of his intention to seek a new client."
"I think I can change his mind."
"You will have to hurry if we are to maintain global stability."
"What are you talking about?"
"Yesterday Chiun stood before the United Nations General Assembly and offered his services to the highest bidder."
"Uh-oh," said Remo.
"By implication he has revealed that the United States no longer employs the House of Sinanju."