Remo grunted.
"So I packed my bag and piled into my old Studebaker, and since west was the direction from which Ko Jong Oh had come, it made sense that I go west. Well, I didn't get very far until I ran out of money and had to look for work. So I fell into stunt work. It paid, didn't demand all of my time and, between shoots, I could travel. Let me tell you I traveled all over the globe. Sometimes with a production, other times on my own. I was searching for Sun On Jo, studying maps, talking to people. But China had gone Communist, and every way in was blocked.
"I was in Japan during the last days of the occupation when I ran into a Korean who told me of a place called Sinanju way up in North Korea, whose warriors were feared and respected throughout Asia. By that time old Marshal Kim Il-Sung was in charge up there, and as an American I couldn't get there for money, marbles or chalk."
"What year was this?" Remo asked.
"I'm getting to that. About that time the Korean War broke out. I watched it seesaw back and forth a while, and when MacArthur took Pyongyang, I saw my chance. I up and joined the Army. After basic, I shipped out for Korea. I asked for action and I got it. They handed me a BAR and put me right on the line. Chosin Reservoir. MiG Alley. I saw it all. It was a terrible war. But I guess all wars are terrible."
"I did a tour in Nam." said Remo. "Marines."
"If I had been around, I would have knocked that notion out of your skull on day one."
Remo said nothing. Sunny Joe went on.
"I was with General Walker's Eighth Army when we took up positions along the Chongchon River in October 1950. Our orders were to hold a bridgehead north of Sinanju. Mountains to the east. Mountains to the west. I never saw so many mountains outside of Arizona. Or such a bitter winter. We had the North Koreans licked, but there were rumors the Chinese were about to take a hand. While we were digging in, they attacked. Wiped out the entire Eight Cav at Unsan. We knew we were in for it then.
"Me, I just wanted to take a look around Sinanju, but I was stuck where I was. So I hunkered down as we pounded the enemy and they pounded us back, with Migs and Yaks and U.S. Sabre jets screaming over our heads and the winter closing in and the bigwigs chanting 'Home by Christmas.' They just never got around to saying which Christmas. Sound familiar, Remo?"
"Yeah. It does."
"Anyway, by early November my unit, the Nineteenth Infantry, were still trying to hold the bridgehead, when the Chinese swooped down on our battery position with their mortars and small-arms fire, blowing bugles to freeze the blood. We fought practically eyeball to eyeball, dead Chinese stacking up not thirty yards from our gun shields. Before long we were surrounded, Chinese knife men killed some of us in our sleeping bags. It was a grim night, I will tell you. I was sure I was going to die."
Sunny Joe hung his head at the memory.
"We withdrew under fire, abandoning the bridgehead. The tide was turning, just as it would all war long. Then on the night of November 6, the Chinese forces broke contact and went into full retreat. To this day, no one's ever been able to explain it. They just up and marched into the mountains, never to be heard from again. You won't read about the Battle of Sinanju in too many history books, but for my money it was the worst conflict of the war. They had us cold. But they bugged out."
Remo looked back to the Master of Sinanju.
"You were not near the village of Sinanju, brother of my ancestors," said Chiun. "But in Sinanju town, a lesser place. And on the night you describe, the Chinese ran because to do otherwise was to die."
"What do you know about that?" Sunny Joe asked. Chiun pulled himself up in the saddle proudly. "On that night I left my village called Sinanju at the edge of the West Korea Bay, and descended upon the Chinese, driving them back to the Yalu."
"You and what army?"
"I and no army. Just I."
"Is he kidding?" Roam asked Remo.
"No," said Remo.
"The noise of battle was keeping the women and children awake at night," Chiun explained. "Besides, I did not like the Chinese in my land. It had too many squatters already."
"What about the Americans?"
"They looted and raped no one, and so I suffered them to live."
Sunny Joe grinned crookedly. "Well, you saved my butt that night. If what you say is true."
"It is true," Chiun sniffed.
"Anyway, during our retreat I finally got to see Sinanju. It was a typical Korean town filled with frightened refugees. I talked to the locals. Nobody had ever heard of Ko Jong Oh. Or Sun On Jo, or any of it. It had to be the second-biggest disappointment of my entire life." Then, glancing at Remo, he amended, "No, make that third."
Remo looked away.
Sunny Joe continued. "Well, the war finally ended and I went home. Landed back in Hollywood. I didn't know what to do with myself. My father had passed on while I was at war, and as I saw it, I had failed to find the land of Sun On Jo. So I fell back into stunt work. TV was coming in, and there were Westerns galore. I doubled for the best of them. Worked my way up to stunt coordinator and eventually did some acting. I played black hats and white hats. Spoke my first line on a 'Rifleman' episode. It wasn't all glory, though. I took a lot of falls and broke a lot of bones.
"Around that time-guess it was a few years before, now that I think about it-I took me a wife. Figured if I made enough money I could return to the reservation with cash in my pockets enough to make up for my failure.
"Then my wife told me she was going to have a papoose. It was the proudest day of my life. I was hoping for a son. You know, a Sunny Joe to carry on after me."
Remo plucked a needle off a saguaro and rolled it between his fingers thoughtfully.
"Well, she did give me a son. A dark-eyed, dark-haired squalling little boy. I near to have burst. But the birth went bad and she sickened. Within a week she was no more."
Remo sucked in a hot breath. When Sunny Joe resumed talking, his voice was twisted. "It broke me up inside. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I couldn't think. I didn't know what to do. You see, I had made plans, but now they had come apart. I couldn't see starting over. I couldn't see raising a boy without a mother. Not in my line of work. Not with the travel and the hours. There was nothing for me back at the reservation.
"So one night I flew east, picked out a nice Catholic orphanage because my wife had been raised Catholic, laid the boy on the doorstep and walked away with my guts a great big ache and agony."
"That was me," said Remo, his voice dull.
"Now, when I got started, I did my stunt work under a stage name, William S. Rome. Turned 'Roam' to 'Rome,' after the city. Figured it sounded more Continental or something. Didn't want the reservation elders to know it was me. In the back of my head I thought I might go and claim that papoose as my own one fine day. So I gave him a name that no one else would have. I juggled 'Rome' to get 'Remo' and gave him my first name as his last, adding an S for 'Sunny Joe.'"
"What did you name the baby?" Remo said softly. "Truth is, my wife died before we could decide on a name. She wanted to name him after me. But I favored something he could call his own. Hell, if he's still alive, he'd be a grown man by now. He can call himself whatever he wants. He's earned that right."
"So did you not claim that child?" asked Chiun.
"Well, time passed, the work took me here and the work took me there. I got into movies and, when that dried up-and it always did-I went back into TV Black hats mostly. When detective shows replaced Westerns, I played hoods, and when science fiction took over from detective shows, I played Klingons and Cylons and what have you. Producers realized that with my height and thin frame I looked good in a rubber suit, so I played every kind of monster you could imagine. Pretty soon I was stuck as a central casting creature."