While some would so much rather it were otherwise, on this day one hundred and seven years ago, the outlaws Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid were killed in a shootout with soldiers just outside of San Vicente in southern Bolivia. It is possible one shot his mortally wounded colleague and then killed himself.
I find myself wondering about our collective romance with the outlaws of our American frontier days. Largely thugs and murderers and worse. Something to do with our communal romance with the individual, although we have to clean it up a whole lot to make them palatable. Perhaps there’s a lesson in that, somewhere deep down.
Me, while I admit I am carried away on occasion by the stories of derring do from these times, I care about these particular characters for the most part because of the movie.
(And, I liked this scene better than the actual ending. So…)
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