Few children dream of growing up to rob banks and hold up trains, and Butch Cassidy was no exception. His transformation from an idealistic ranch hand to one of the most legendary outlaws of the American West was a slow, steady slide into a life of crime, shaped by choices that seemed small at the time but would alter the course of his entire existence.

Born Robert LeRoy Parker to devout Mormon parents in rural Utah, young Butch started out much like any other frontier boy, herding cattle, breaking horses, and working the unforgiving ranches of the rugged West. But it was there, among the dusty corrals and wide-open ranges, that he fell in with rough-and-tumble cattlemen who rustled livestock on the side. To an impressionable youth, these men weren't criminals; they were bold figures who refused to bow to corrupt cattle barons, who carved out their own justice in an unjust world. The line between right and wrong began to blur. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, Parker learned to make his own rules. He learned that the system wasn't fair, that honest work didn't always pay, and that sometimes a man had to take what he needed.

Before long, Robert LeRoy Parker had vanished, replaced by Butch Cassidy—the charismatic leader of the Wild Bunch. He became a man who robbed from the wealthy and powerful, yet remarkably never killed a soul. He lived entirely on his own terms, answering to no authority but his own conscience, however selective that conscience might have been.

Charlie Brogan

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