Sheriff Poole & The Mech Gang — Charles de Lint

Sheriff Poole & The Mech Gang is set near de Lint's fictional desert town of Santo del Vado Viejo, where his novels The Mystery of Grace and The Painted Boy take place, and where some of his recent short fiction has been set. It is available here for the first time in any format.

Dan Cutler lives with his wife Mason in the foothills of the Hierro Madera Mountains near the ruins of Showdown Ranch, his father's old amusement park. Although the ranch is now owned by developers, nothing has been done with it since the day Dan's father died there in a mysterious explosion.

Four generations of Cutler men have worked with carnival machines called animatrons -- large metal figures whose clockwork workings delight and captivate audiences.

Ever since the explosion Dan has been salvaging parts of these mechanical men from the ruins and bringing them home to try to put them back in working order. But there is a greater reason to make these machine men operational once more -- something that threatens the Cutlers' very existence.