Fact1: assassin In attempts to shoot preacher delivering sermon at pulpit other sub-story, Fact2: Lightfoot rescues preacher by running over pursuer and giving preacher lift, Fact3: Thunderbolt is only member Hiding out in guise of clergyman following robbery of Montana bank, Fact4: ones trying to kill him are members of gang, Fact5: Red forces Thunderbolt and Lightfoot to stop car
Output: As a young neerdowell, Lightfoot Jeff Bridges steals a car. In the other substory, an assassin attempts to shoot a preacher delivering a sermon at his pulpit. The preacher escapes on foot. Lightfoot, who happens to be driving by, inadvertently rescues the preacher by running over his pursuer and giving the preacher a lift. Lightfoot eventually learns that the minister is really a notorious bank robber known as The Thunderbolt Clint Eastwood for his use of a 20 millimeter cannon to break into a safe. Hiding out in the guise of a clergyman following the robbery of a Montana bank, Thunderbolt is the only member of his old gang who knows where the loot is hidden. After escaping another attempt on his life by two other men, Thunderbolt tells Lightfoot that the ones trying to kill him are members of his gang who mistakenly thought Thunderbolt had doublecrossed them. He and Lightfoot journey to Warsaw, Montana to retrieve the money hidden in an old oneroom schoolhouse. They discover the schoolhouse has been replaced by a brandnew school standing in its place. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot are abducted by the men who were pursuing them—the vicious Red Leary George Kennedy and the gentle Eddie Goody Geoffrey Lewis—and driven to a remote location where Thunderbolt and Red fight each other, after which Thunderbolt explains how he never betrayed the gang. Lightfoot proposes another heist—robbing the same company as before—with a variation on the original plan; the variation being due to Lightfoot inadvertently killing their electronics expert, Dunlop, the man who tried to assassinate Thunderbolt in the earlier scene. In the city where the bank is located, the men find jobs to raise money for needed equipment while they plan the heist. The robbery begins as Thunderbolt and Red gain access to the building. Lightfoot, dressed as a woman, distracts the Western Union offices security guard, deactivates the ensuing alarm, and is picked up by Goody. Using an antitank cannon to breach the vaults wall, as they did in the first heist, the gang escapes with the loot. They flee in the car, with Red and Goody in the trunk, to a nearby drivein movie in progress. Upon seeing a shirt tail protruding from the cars trunk lid which is a strong indication one or more people are hiding in the trunk to avoid paying, the suspicious theater manager calls the police and a chase ensues. Goody is shot and Red throws him out of the trunk onto a dirt road, where he dies. Red then forces Thunderbolt and Lightfoot to stop the car. He pistolwhips them both, knocking them unconscious, and kicks Lightfoot violently in the head. Red takes off with the loot in the getaway car but is again pursued by police, who shoot Red several times, causing him to lose control of the car and crash through the window of a department store, where he is attacked and killed by the stores vicious watchdog. Escaping on foot, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot hitch a ride the next morning and are dropped off near Warsaw, Montana, where they stumble upon the oneroom schoolhouse—now a historical monument on the side of a highway—moved there from its original location in Warsaw after the first heist. As the two men retrieve the stolen money, Lightfoots behavior becomes erratic as a result of the beating. Thunderbolt buys a new Cadillac convertible with cash, something Lightfoot said he had always wanted to do, and picks up his waiting partner, who is gradually losing control of the left side of his body. As they drive away celebrating their success with cigars, Lightfoot, in obvious distress, tells Thunderbolt in a slurred voice how proud he is of their accomplishments, and slumps over dead. Thunderbolt snaps his cigar in half as it is no longer a celebration, and with his dead partner beside him, he drives off down the highway into the distance.