Ben Bridges – författare

Vernacular responses have been crucial for communities seeking creative ways to cope with the coronavirus pandemic. With most people locked down and separated from the normal ebb and flow of life for an extended period of time, COVID-19 inspired community and creativity, adaptation and flexibility, traditional knowledge, resistance, and dynamism. Removing people from assumed norms and daily lives, the pandemic provided a moment of insight into the nature of vernacular culture as it was used, abused, celebrated, critiqued, and discarded. In Behind the Mask, contributors from the USA, the UK, and Scandinavia emphasize the choices that individual people and communities made during the COVID pandemic, prioritizing the everyday lives of people enduring this health crisis.  Despite vernacular’s potential nod to dominant or external culture, it is the strong connection to the local that grounds the vernacular within the experiential context that it occupies. Exploring the nature and shape of vernacular responses to the ongoing public health crisis, Behind the Mask documents processes that are otherwise likely to be forgotten. Including different ethnographic presents, contributors capture moments during the pandemic rather than upon reflection, making the work important to students and scholars of folklore and ethnology, as well as general readers interested in the COVID pandemic.

Man hat Carter O''Brien zehntausend Dollar versprochen, wenn er Aaron Norris aufspürt und in die Vereinigten Staaten bringt. Norris, ein einflussreicher Politiker, wird des Mordes verdächtigt. Er sitzt in einem Gefängnis, fast zweihundert Meilen von der amerikanischen Grenze entfernt. Doch es gibt weitere Kopfgeldjäger.

Rancher Clint McNally was looking for someone to deliver $20,000 to the men who'd kidnapped his young son. Whoever took the job had to be as hard as nails, so professional fighting man Carter O'Brien was the natural choice.Still, McNally knew better than to trust that kind of money to one man, so he gave O'Brien a partner – a one-eyed, cigar-chewing soldier of fortune called Logan Tyree. There was just one problem; Tyree hated O'Brien's guts because of something that had happened nine years earlier …Right from the start O'Brien had his doubts about the job, but this time even he couldn't guess what lay ahead for them. There were men willing to risk everything for a share of that money, and with the promise of more where that came from, he and Tyree were soon following a trail of cross and double-cross all the way to the hellish swamps of the Big Thicket …Also includes the essay BEN BRIDGES AND CARTER O'BRIEN

The Texas Rangers sent Carter O'Brien south of the border with orders to kill a madman. It was said that his target—a murderous bandit named Salazar—had the face of an angel and the heart of a demon. Certainly, judging by all he'd heard, O'Brien sure figured he needed killing. Given the choice, though, he'd sooner have faced Salazar in a head-on gunfight than turn back-shooter and kill him from hiding.But the only trouble with that idea lay with Salazar's eight-strong gang of cut-throats, for it was common knowledge that if you took on one of them, you took on the lot—and even a professional fighting man like O'Brien had to draw the line somewhere ...

It's the autumn of 1897, and men are flocking to the wild and woolly Yukon Territory in search of gold. But soldier-for-hire Tom Cannon had a different reason for making the hazardous trek north. The one-time cavalry officer has been hired to find Emmet Lawrence, a greenhorn who had gone to seek his fortune and then disappeared.Time and again, as Cannon searched the icy wastes and snow-capped mountains, he drew a blank. No-one remembered Lawrence or knew where to find him.Then something happened that Cannon hadn't allowed for. Emmet Lawrence came looking for him …

A mad-dog killer running loose up in the Rockies … a bank robbery that ended in death … a fortune in stolen greenbacks … and three hanged men swaying gently in the breeze … They were all elements in a bizarre mystery the like of which professional adventurer Carter O'Brien had never encountered before.Up until a hidden sniper damn'-near killed him, all he'd wanted was to ride on to his next job in nearby Jackson's Peak, but it looked like somebody else had other ideas.Suddenly he was up to his neck in something deadly. Why had people started dying all around him? Who was the bushwhacker and his sinister Oriental sidekick? And why had they picked on him?Almost before he knew it, O'Brien found himself riding a dangerous trail of deadly dollars in order to find the answers. Too bad he didn't know he was being watched every step of the way …Also contains the bonus essay BEN BRIDGES AND CARTER O'BRIEN!!

Cal Hennessy was on his way to meet up with old friend Billy Dixon at Adobe Walls. The plan was to catch up on each other's news over a beer or three. But before he got there he ran into two dead men and a bunch of blood-hungry Comanches.Trouble was brewing on the Staked Plains of Texas and Hennessy, who was no stranger to it, quickly found himself in the middle of a full-scale Indian war.He was a tough hombre. But was he tough enough to survive the killing to come?

It was probably going to be the last great wagon train ever to go up the Oregon Trail ... but right now the settlers were stranded in the middle of nowhere and they needed someone to get them safely through to the Promised Land.Sam Judge, the legendary town-tamer, had captained a few trains in his day, but he had no particular hankering to relive those wild times all over again. Those settlers still had hundreds of miles to go before they reached their destination, and the way ahead was filled with all kinds of danger.But fate had other ideas for Sam, and when they finally reached trail's end, he and his gun-fast young partner, Matt Dury, found themselves under sentence of death ... and about to face a trial by fire!Includes the exclusive interview A WORD OR TWO WITH BEN BRIDGES!!

Tim Dennison died a slow, agonizing death, but because he was a sheep man in a valley that was controlled by two powerful cattle-barons, no one cared if his killers got away with murder.But the veteran town-tamer, Sam Judge, and his gun-swift young partner, Matt Dury, did care. And when they tangled with a bunch of masked gunmen in a shooting spree that left another two men dead, it became kind of personal.However, Dennison's death was just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface, the Tabosa Valley Sheep War was a power-keg just waiting to blow.Includes the exclusive interview A WORD OR TWO WITH BEN BRIDGES!!

They said that Chase Donovan had been a Texas Ranger for too long, that he'd become a law unto himself and that they weren't prepared to put up with his maverick, gun-fast ways any longer. So they took away his badge and kicked him out of the battalion and, almost before he knew it, he'd turned into a full-time drunk. Then a wealthy business man offered to bankroll his very own fight against the lawless. There was only one catch. Chase had to mend his wicked ways and go back to being the kind of lawman he used to be. He agreed to give it a go – and wound up trading lead with the bully-boys of North Town, Texas, where bullets were cheap, but life was even cheaper …

Carter O'Brien's gun is for hire, but only when the job – and the money – are right. He's been everything from lawman to bounty hawk and he's as tough as they come.Right now he's riding shotgun on an expedition led by an old friend from his army days. Their goal – to find a lost canyon of silver down in Mexico. But the way is blocked by gunmen working for a greedy Mexican businessman and a ghost from O'Brien's past. To survive, O'Brien must kill or be killed.As the expedition goes deeper into the untamed sierra, the body count starts to rise. O'Brien himself is left to die a slow death in the merciless desert, but it's only when he meets a fiery Mexican señorita that he discovers that it's not a trail of silver he's been following all this time, but a trail of revenge …Includes the essay BEN BRIDGES AND CARTER O'BRIEN!!

Tension was rising fast in the hell-for-leather town of Little Cody, Wyoming. A young girl had been murdered and the killer was locked up in the local jail, awaiting trial. But the rough-and-ready miners weren't prepared to let justice take its course. The only law they craved was lynch law. And to make things worse, the killer's family was trying every dirty trick they could think of to make sure the case never reached the courts.As winter locked its icy grip on the isolated mountain town, Fate involved the legendary town-tamer Sam Judge and his gun-swift young partner Matt Dury in the affair. And as snow piled up outside and temperatures grew hotter than Hell within, the men from Texas soon found themselves dodging bullets and fists to make sure that the killer had his day in court ... his Judgment Day.Includes the exclusive interview A WORD OR TWO WITH BEN BRIDGES!!

Thomas Howard of Missouri came out of nowhere, one foggy night, to rescue Countess Elaina Montague from rape and robbery. He was in England, he said, to find his brother, who had disappeared. To repay him, the beautiful Countess offered to enlist her friend, Sherlock Holmes, to help in the search. Despite investigating a rash of audacious jewel-thefts, and already spending altogether too much time at the music-hall, the Great Detective felt there was more to the mysterious Mr Howard, and accepted the case. With the case leading to their involvement in a vicious blood-feud, a spectacular daylight robbery and the possibility of a serious diplomatic incident Holmes and Watson must bring the case to a close, in a thrilling climax below the brooding River Thames.

With the promise of $10,000 still ringing in his ears, professional fighting man Carter O'Brien rode south to free Aaron Norris, a big-shot politician who'd been framed for murder. But it wasn't going to be easy. Norris was being held in a prison nearly two hundred miles from home, and it was a veritable fortress that had been built right on the doorstep of a garrison full of Mexican soldiers.As if that wasn't bad enough, there were others who'd set their sights on the reward—two get-rich-quick Americans named Pope and Trace, and a half-Cheyenne Dog Soldier called Sundown.As they all came together, the dry Mexican air was shattered by the roar of dynamite and the higher, deadly whine of bullets ...Includes the essay BEN BRIDGES AND CARTER O'BRIEN!

Arch Bowman raped and murdered his way across the West to become the stuff of legend. But when he survived a near-fatal shooting in Colfax, Colorado, he decided to make the most of his new lease of life and finally settle a long-standing piece of unfinished business …But that didn't mean Bowman was about to go soft. Before he was through, innocent men would die in legendary numbers, and Bowman would make sure that life was hell for a mild-mannered farmer named Walt Canaday.As it turned out, that proved to be his worst mistake … because if Bowman was back from the dead, then Canaday was back with a vengeance.