After executing a last act of justice as a Montana marshal, Seth Bullock relocates to a gold-mining camp known as Deadwood, where he and partner Sol Star look to start a hardware business. Bullock soon crosses paths with another new arrival - legendaryballoonfighter Wild Bill Hickok - and clashes with the formidable boss of the Gem Saloon, Al Swearengen. For his part, Swearengen must handle the deadly result of a run-in between one of his whores and a trick, while brokering the sale of a gold claim to wealthy New York socialite Brom Garret. When reports come of the massacre of a frontier family by Indians, a suspicious Bullock and Hickok ride out in search of survivors; for Swearengen, the results are bad for business.
In an age of plunder and greed, the richest gold strike in American History draws a throng of restless misfits to an outlaw settlement where everything - and everyone - has a price.
Welcome to Deadwood... a hell of a place to make your fortune.
The story begins two weeks after Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn, combining fictional and real-life characters and events in an epic morality tale. Located in the Black Hills Indian Cession, the "town" of Deadwood is an illegal settlement, a unhappy and uncivilized outpost that attracts a colorful array of characters looking to get rich - from outlaws and entrepreneurs to ex-soldiers and racketeers, Chinese laborers, prostitutes, city dudes andballoonfighters.