Chapter 11 of 12 · 3'25"
On the run in Bolivia, Butch and Sundance weigh whether to finish off the man hunting them or simply go straight. Their bravado hides a losing hand — "let's finish it now, one way or the other." A stranger's job offer as payroll guards sounds like salvation, until he admits he cannot promise to pay.
Butch Decides to Outlast Lefors
Holed up in a remote Bolivian town, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid debate whether Sheriff Lefors can arrest them abroad. Deciding the law can't touch them, they plan to outlast him by going straight. Instead they meet a mine operator desperate for payroll guards; he hires them on the spot, warning only that bandits keep robbing the payrolls — and that he cannot promise to pay.
For two men used to calling the shots, this scene is about the end of options. They tell themselves Lefors is beatable — "We'll drive him crazy. We'll outlast the bastard. We'll go straight!" — but the same speech reveals they have nothing left to rob and nowhere to run. The joke is that their new boss is hiring them to guard the payrolls that the "Bandidos Yanquis," meaning the two of them, have been robbing. The boss's answer "Because I cannot promise to pay you" is the film's sly commentary on outlaws turned wage men: honest work in Bolivia pays exactly as badly as crime. Going straight doesn't rescue them; it just changes who is chasing whom.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“We'll drive him crazy. We'll outlast the bastard. We'll go straight!”
Three clipped promises build from spite to reform, a little speech that sounds like a plan.
Informal
“He'll wait for us to pull a job, then hunt us like before.”
It turns the hunter's patience into a trap, explaining why hiding will never work.
Neutral
“Well, you couldn't have picked a more out of the way place in all Bolivia, I'll tell you that.”
A complaint doubles as a landmark description, dry local humor with a hint of doom.
Neutral
“Because I cannot promise to pay you.”
The job offer lands with an honest catch: the pay is a promise he cannot make.
Neutral
Up next · 12ways of going straightThe scene: Butch and Etta Discuss the FutureThey consider it — "let's finish it now, one way or the other" — but they can't be sure it's really Lefors, and a shootout in a foreign country risks more than it settles.
Because every mine's payroll is held up on the road from La Paz. With the money so unreliable, he can't guarantee wages for the guards he hires.
The man whose operation the job is with. His name comes up as someone you normally have to wait to work for, which shows how far the two fugitives have fallen.
As a plan, yes — outlast Lefors by taking honest work. But the honest work is guarding payrolls, the same money the "Bandidos Yanquis" have been stealing, so the line stays thin.
