The Wild West is covered in legends. Hundreds of books and films in the Western genre glorify courageous sheriffs and desperate bandits. But what were they really like? What is true in their life and what is fiction? In reality, the noble Wyatt Earp suddenly turns out to be a brothel keeper and a boastful liar; the defender of the common people, Joaquin Murrieta, is a bloodthirsty executioner who kills the poor for just a few coins; and the famous thug Billy the Kid is a boy who is trying in vain to live honestly! You are holding in your hands a book written on the basis of historical sources and archival materials. For the first time in Russian, it tells without embellishment about the realities of the Wild West and about the people who became the heroes of numerous legends.