eel are particularly relevant to the discussion of history and narrative which follows. As Lone Star begins, two off-duty soldiers are searching a section of the desert near their military camp with a metal detector, looking for bullets and metal fragments one of the soldiers uses to create sculptures. "You live in a place, you should learn something about it," one of them says, establishing one of the key themes of the movie. As they search the sand, they find a badge inscribed with the words "Rio County Sheriff" along with a Masonic ring. It doesn't take long to establish that these artifacts (along with the bones found in a shallow grave) belong to the former Sheriff Charley Wade, a notoriously corrupt and racist bully who terrorized the border town of Frontera, extorting money and ruthlessly murdering anyone who got in his way (particularly if they happened to be Mexican or Black). Charley Wade disappeared some forty years earlier, presumably driven out of town by Buddy Deeds, the man who would succeed him as Sheriff of Frontera. Buddy Deeds, a "legendary" an!
             d well-loved figure in the town who is also deceased, quickly emerges as the key suspect in the murder.
             The "whodunit" surrounding Charley Wades' death propels the plot of Lone Star, and the task of solving the mystery falls on Sheriff Sam Deeds, Buddy Deeds' son, who has recently returned to Frontera. Quiet and straightforward, Sam is cut from very different cloth than his legendary and charismatic father. It is clear that Sam's relationship with Buddy Deeds was troubled and that he has difficulty accepting the notion of his father as a local hero. In the course of the film, we will learn more about Sam's relationship with his father, which will be juxtaposed against a number of other problematic parent-child relationships. As Sam investigates the murder, he resumes a love affair with his childhood sweetheart, Pilar Cruz. Pilar's mother Mercedes and Buddy Deeds joined ...