Though Lajitas was on the border with Mexico, it was not at all the dusty gateway that we'd expected. In 1999, the entire town had been bought by an Austin developer named Steve Smith, and had been transformed into a resort: Lajitas, The Ultimate Hideout. The resort maintains its own airport, equestrian center, hotel and spa. Its many attractions include a terraced restaurant overlooking the distant mountains, a candle lit lounge called the Thirsty Goat Saloon, and a golf course with an "international" hole on the other side of the Rio Grande. Everything was tidy, trim, and marked with tasteful, though poorly punctuated, signs. After a day's drive through the empty desert, we had landed in Disneyworld.

This turn made the story we'd heard seem even stranger. As a sign on Clay Henry's pen plainly states, the goat likes to drink beer, Lone Star long necks to be precise. Apparently, a couple of years ago, he drank the beer of a man who had been unwilling to relinquish it, and the man exacted his revenge by returning in the dead of night and brutally castrating Clay Henry. The goat nearly bled to death, and the culprit was arrested on charges of animal cruelty after a hotel maid found Clay Henry's testicles in the fridge of his mini-bar.

We asked about the truth of the story at the Trading Post, a general store built at the turn of the century, which, though much gentrified, is still in operation. Charlie Jenkins, the Trading Post's manager, confirmed the substance of the story and cleared up a few details that had remained obscure. According to Charlie, the man whose beer had been drunk was a patron of the hotel, while the man who had given the beer to Clay Henry was the resort's owner, Steve Smith, who had a friend with him and wanted to show off the mayor's talent. Though the attacker was charged with animal cruelty, a judge ruled that the resort was acting with equal cruelty by giving the goat beer, and the man was acquitted.

Charlie encouraged us to buy Clay Henry a Lone Star, and I'm ashamed to say that we did. He sucked it down, beer dripping from the tip of his beard, a greedy look in the slits of his eyes. His father, Clay Henry II, had also been mayor, and when he died, intact, of old age, he was stuffed and mounted with an upturned bottle of Lone Star between his lips.

Clay Henry IV shares his father's pen, though he hasn't yet developed a taste for drink. Clay Henry III's beer-loving, Boer-cross wife Rosita also lives there with her infant kids, Paco and Lupita. Though he's made a (nearly) full recovery, and remains the patriarch of his family, it's uncertain what Clay Henry III's future holds. In an election year, with the rumor of Clyde the Dog's interest in office, there's the possibility of another brutal battle, though this time Clay Henry III has a little less to lose. —MMH