In the catalog of the modern western, a lot of space is given to stories focused on what is assumed to have been the sheer miserableness of life on the frontier. Viscous carpets of mud. Frigid snowscapes. Scalpings. Rapes. The sibilant impact of arrows puncturing flesh.

America's past is pock-marked with cruelty, blood and deceit, and while more and more films and movies ("1883," "Killers Of The Flower Moon," "Power Of The Dog," et al) have tried to show that reality in recent years,