Two off-duty sergeants from an Army post near the Texas border town of Frontera find skeletal remains and a rusty sheriff's badge on an abandoned rifle range. Frontera's current sheriff, Sam Deeds, son of the late legendary lawman Buddy Deeds, begins an investigation. Sam quickly learns that the bones are those of the corrupt sheriff his father was reputed to have run out of town, Charley Wade. Sam's hostile relationship with his father had driven him out of Frontera and only since the old man's death has he returned. Now that Mayor Hollis Pogue and the city council plan to name the new courthouse after Buddy Deeds, Sam's old feelings about his father resurface. In the border towns that bridge the Rio Grande, against a tapestry of historical, familial and individual passions, promises and deceptions, "Lone Star" unfolds.