Summaries

Synopsis

The film opens with a couple of men out in the desert. One of them is admiring the local flora while the other is sweeping the area with a metal detector. We learn later on that they're a pair of off-duty sergeants from a base nearby that's due to close in about three years, and this particular chunk of desert was the army's rifle range many years ago. They stumble over a human skeleton and, shortly after the police arrive, they also find a Rio County sheriff's badge and a Masonic ring.

We are in Frontera, Texas, a border town in Rio County. Sam Deeds is the sheriff here in Frontera. Sam was born here but left as a young adult. He returned two years ago and was elected to the position. Sam's late father was the legendary Sheriff Buddy Deeds, who is beloved by the town, remembered as a unique individual with a great sense of fairness and justice. And Sam's mother is repeatedly referred to as a saint. As a teenager Sam had problems with his father, and the pair routinely argued and fought, so these glad-handing descriptions aren't really helping him.

Sam brings in Texas Ranger Ben Wetzel to help with the case. Wetzel tells Sam that forensics identify the skeleton as that of Charlie Wade. Wade was the remarkably corrupt and cruel sheriff who preceded Buddy Deeds. Back in 1957, Wade mysteriously disappeared, and as they investigated the issue, they discovered that $10,000 in county funds were missing. So the popular theory then was that Wade took the money and ran. But now Wade's body has turned up and not far from home, for that matter. Based on the story from Mayor Hollis Pogue, who along with Buddy was a deputy sheriff under Wade, Buddy sounds a lot like the prime suspect because the last time anyone saw Wade alive, it was on a night when Buddy refused to help Wade with collecting his grift. And, it turns out, the two sergeants were searching for old bullet casings and one of those casings came from a .45 caliber gun, not something you typically find on a rifle range. Given that the police carry .45's, this is more evidence pointing to Sam's father as the trigger man.

Now, Hollis and a local business leader named Mercedes Cruz are working hard to have the local jail replaced by a new and larger facility. And Sam thinks that it's a waste of taxpayer money. In fact, he views it as a kind of log-rolling grift to put money into people's pockets. Over time, we learn that when Sam was a teenager, he was in love with Mercedes's daughter Pilar, but the courtship was strongly opposed by Buddy and Mercedes. When Pilar's son is arrested for a petty crime, Sam runs into her by chance and gets him released from jail. And though he's been in town for a couple of years, this is the first time Sam has seen her since he left town. They begin to see each other casually from this point.

Mercedes is rather a complicated woman. She owns a local restaurant, and she hires immigrants to work there, insisting that they speak English because, as she says, "We're in America now." She also owns a property that turns out to be close to the river, so it's a common place for illegal immigrants to cross through, and she's not above calling the Border Patrol to turn them in.

Meanwhile, in another plot line, Colonel Delmore Payne has recently arrived in town as the commander of the local Army base. Delmore is coincidentally the son of Otis "Big O" Payne, a local nightclub owner and leading figure in the African-American community. Big O is to the African-Americans what Buddy was to everyone else. Otis and Delmore are estranged because of Otis's serial womanizing and abandonment of Delmore's mother when Delmore was a child.

During Sam's investigations of the events leading up to Wade's murder, he learns more about Wade's terrible ways. In addition to his monthly extortion of the local businesses, Wade would also kill people who didn't cooperate with him. He'd ask his victims if they carried any weapons, and when they answer in the affirmative, he asks to see those weapons, so he can justify shooting them for "resisting arrest". Back in the late 1950s, Wade used this method to murder, in front of then-Deputy Hollis, Mercedes' husband, Eladio Cruz, having discovered he was running an illegal smuggling operation in Rio County without bribing Wade.

Sam also uncovers secrets about his father's nearly 30-years as sheriff that suggest that Buddy himself had some corruption going on. He visits Wesley Birdsong, a Native American and a roadside tourist stand owner, who reveals that Buddy was a wild young adult after his service in the Korean War but settled down after becoming a deputy sheriff and marrying Sam's mother; but he reveals that Buddy did have a mistress, whose name Wesley claims to have forgotten. Sam travels to San Antonio, where he visits his marginally mentally ill ex-wife Bunny and searches through his father's things, where he discovers a bunch of documents, including old bills and love letters from Buddy's mistress. Otis tells Sam that Buddy's focus was on the county political machine while Wade's focus was on money. The janitor at the sheriff's office tells Sam that he worked on Buddy's home while incarcerated in the local jail. A local reporter uncovers that Buddy forcibly evicted residents of a small community to make a lake that made Frontera a popular tourist destination...and Buddy and Hollis became the owners of lakefront property.

One of Mercedes' employees turns up in her back yard. It turns out that he's been assisting some of the illegal immigrants and one of them was injured during the river crossing. The woman is the mother of his son; she learns that the woman he married was a marriage of convenience but now he's bringing the woman he loves over to the US. Mercedes is going to call the Border Patrol again to get them to bring her to a hospital, but changes her mind and takes them to a local doctor who owes her a favor.

Sam confronts Hollis and Otis about Wade's murder, thinking he has all the details to pin it all on his own late father. But it's not quite what he thinks. Wade discovered Otis was running an illegal gambling operation at the nightclub, after he had previously warned Otis against running numbers in the club. Wade was mostly upset not that the gambling was going on, but that he wasn't getting his cut. So in a flashback scene in which we hear none of the dialogue, Wade violently attacked Otis, ordered him to hand over the monthly extortion money, and then was about to use his "resisting arrest" setup to kill Otis. Buddy arrived just as Hollis shot Wade to prevent Otis's murder. The three of them then buried the body, then took the $10,000 from the county. They gave the money to Mercedes-who was left destitute after Eladio's death at Wade's hands-to allow her to buy her restaurant. Hollis also reveals that Buddy and Mercedes did not take up until sometime later. Sam decides to drop the issue, saying it will remain an unsolved mystery. Hollis voices concern that, when the skeleton is revealed to be Wade, people will assume Buddy killed him to take his job, to which Sam states that Buddy's a legend; he can handle it.

Pilar meets Sam at an old drive-in theater where Sam shows her an old photo of Buddy and Mercedes and tells her Eladio didn't die a few months before she was born, it was 18 months. Between the documents he found and the photo, we realize that Buddy is Pilar's father, making them half-siblings. Both are hurt over the deception but decide that, since she cannot have any more children, they will continue their romantic relationship.