Ringo Kid #15
Challenge!
The Ringo Kid is confronted by Ben Santee and is ready to stand his ground when he learns that is not why Santee has sought him out. He learns that Santee, a famous gun fighter, has grown tired of living the life of constantly proving that he is top gun to those who come to challenge him. The Kid understands where he is coming from due to his own life as an outlaw on the run. He is shocked to hear it when Santee tells the Kid that he intends to go into the town of Totem without any guns so that he can end his tortured existence once and for all. Santee rides off, but the Ringo Kid cannot bring himself to allow him to commit suicide.
An hour later in town a gang of outlaws become aware of Ben Santee entering town, and they being to plan to attack him. Also entering town the Ringo Kid pays a visit to the local sheriff and finds that the elderly lawman has just retired and is unwilling to risk his life protecting Santee, so the Kid asks to have control of the jail instead. Elsewhere in town Santee walks down the street visible to all. An outlaw named Colie Barns prepares to take a shot of him through an alley, but is roped up by the Ringo Kid, who dunks him in a barrel of water. When another pair tries to bushwack Ben, the Ringo Kid stops them as well.
Sure enough within a half-hour the Ringo Kid has rounded up all the outlaws in town and locks them up in jail. The actions of the Ringo Kid shames the sheriff and he returns to take up his job again. The Kid then comes up with an idea and confronts Santee in the middle of the street. Ben is surprised to see Ringo and assumes that the outlaw hero has come to showdown with him, but the Kid does not. When Ben is relieved, the Kid then tells him that he can do more good fighting on the side of the law and he and the sheriff offer Ben the job of a deputy. Ben thanks the Ringo Kid for giving him a new lease on life.
Recurring Characters
Ringo Kid
Arab
Hero for a Day!
The Ringo Kid is out riding with his Comanche friend Dull Knife when they find the abandoned horse of a young boy. They find the boy crying by himself not far away from the horse and see what is wrong with the boy. The young boy is named Tippy and he is sad because he has no friends at school and the kids make fun of him for not having a father and he refuses to go back. The Kid tells the boy that he and Dull Knife will be his friend, and the boy is set to wonder that the legendary Ringo Kid wants to be his friend. With a cover story that Ringo is his uncle, Tippy brings them to his school to show his classmates. Sure enough the kids in his class are skeptical of Tippy's claims until the Ringo Kid and Dull Knife show off their gun and archery skills, much to their delights. With the situation seemingly changed for Tippy, Ringo and Dull Knife depart.
However one of the kids instantly doubts young Tippy's claims pointing out until now, Tippy never mentioned this "uncle" that he has. Tippy is once more upset and returns home and tells the situation to his mother. His mother tells Tippy that perhaps his friends will come back. That night before going to bed, Tippy prays that his friends return. Not far away, Ringo and Dull Knife have set up camp for the night and the Kid can't shake the fact that he hasn't done enough for the young boy and decides that they should go back the next morning.
The following school day, the children are surprised when the Ringo Kid and Dull Knife arrive with a group of Native Americans. The Ringo Kid then tells the children that he has come to bring Tippy out on a camping and hunting trip. Tippy happily joins them and when he returns with head dresses for all his classmates who instantly accept him. The Ringo Kid is satisfied that Tippy will not have any trouble making new friends now.
Recurring Characters
Ringo Kid
Dull Knife
Arab
Aztec Gold!
The Ringo Kid is riding past a ranch where he spots the owner being roughed up by two men. The Kid breaks them up and learns that they have come to collect a debt, pointing out that there is a town law that states that any man who cannot pay his debts has to go to jail. The Ringo Kid isn't quick to buy their words and send them packing, telling them that if their claims are true he will personally deliver the old man to the sheriff. The old man thanks the Ringo Kid, introducing himself as Charles Wilkes and that the two men who were roughing him up were Ernie Slade and Jake Denton, and what they said was true. Charles tells them that he was saving up money to square his debts but someone stole it before he could pay them off. Wilkes tells him that he had some change and some Aztec gold pieces in the sack of money he collected. Now that they were stolen he is hoping his son will return to pay them off. The Kid has no choice but to bring Charles to the town jail and turn him over to the sheriff, but tells both Wilkes and the sheriff that he will work some angles to try and help Charles out.
Meanwhile in another part of town, Slade and Denton spot Charles Wilkes son arriving in town and decide to deal with him before he can pay his father's debt. Jim Wilkes meets with a friend and unaware that Slade and Denton are overhearing his conversation, he tells his friend that he has the money to pay off his father's debt. The two outlaws wait for Jim at his hotel room and knock him out and steal his money. When he comes to, Jim realizes that he pulled a shark tooth necklace off one of his attackers. Realizing that it was Slade and Denton, Jim goes rushing out into the street crossing paths with the Ringo Kid. Ringo stops him and convinces him that cooler heads will prevail. The come across the pair as they are gloating over their success and their anticipation of taking hold of Charles Wilkes' ranch. The recover the stolen loot which they can identify thanks to Charles Aztec gold pieces. With this proof, Slade and Denton are locked up and Charles is freed. Charles then tells Ringo and his son an irony of the whole situation: that the Aztec gold were nothing more than worthless fool's gold.
Recurring Characters
Ringo Kid
Arab
One Life... One Peso!
Riding into the town of Barnaby, the Ringo Kid is confronted a posse who tells him that he has entered Fax Caton's part of town and that strangers are not welcome. Noticing that all the business in the area are owned by Caton. He leaves for another part of town, this part owned by a man named Purcell whose people are also not very inviting. He goes to yet another part of town to get water for his horse Arab, only to find that this part of town is in the control of a man named Blackie Cox, and a similar unwelcome warning.
Fed up of this treatment, the Ringo Kid decides to show these tyrants what he thinks of them. The Ringo Kid then shoots up Percell's part of town, followed by that of Canton. He is stopped by the local sheriff before he can continue and is put under arrest. However, the Kid is told by the elderly lawman that if he had the same sort of speed as the Ringo Kid, he would have cleaned up Barnaby a long time ago. The Kid then convinces the sheriff to deputize him so he can clean up town.
His first duty as deputy, the Ringo Kid goes to the local newspaper and has them publish a false story about how the Canton mob intends to take over the entire town from the others. Soon enough the Canton and Purcell mobs chase each other our of town. The Kid then publishes another story in the hopes of stopping the Cox gang. A story published next states that the remains of the Canton and Purcell gang are intending to clean out the Cox gang. The gang spreads out into town and they managed to capture both Canton and Purcell and learn how they have all been set up. Meanwhile, expecting the outlaws to team up and go after him, the Ringo Kid gets a posse together to deal with it.
The Kid then pays a visit to the local barber shop to get his hair cut, leaving himself out in the open for attack. However when the gang tries to ambush him, the Kid sees them in the mirror and whirls around and draws his guns, easily disarming them while the posse rounds up the gangs putting an end of the trouble in Barnaby.
Recurring Characters
Ringo Kid
Cory Rand
Dull Knife
Arab
