THE GORILLA GRAVES GANG 

It was the 1860s the state of Georgia had lost in the war and was now undergoing a political reconstruction. The change made work harder to find as new rules and laws were being unveiled. This was especially hard for Chesmo graves an aging Native American farmer and his young Scottish wife Moreen, with twelve children to feed. None of the twelve were born of Moreen but of three previous wives of Chesmo who had all sadly passed away through incurable illnesses. Yet Moreen loved all of them as her own.

 

Years passed by with just about scraping by when in the fall of 1865 Moreen got pregnant with Chesmos thirteenth child. The pregnancy went well and in 1866 she gave birth to a big strong baby boy, She named him King. As the years were still difficult going on Chesmo wasn't getting any younger and the farm wasn't producing and he couldn't find work elsewhere. Moreen had to go out and work herself to provide for the family and also look after her young son King. Chesmo gradually started getting ill a lot and no medication they could afford helped at all, so Chesmo started drinking the cheapest most horrible whiskey he could afford to take the edge off, also the guilt of not being able to provide started eating away at him and so he drank more which in turn made him iller. Eventually, Chesmo had changed his personality had all but gone, all that remained was a bitter old angry man. He began to beat on Moreen and the remaining children who were not lucky enough to be of an age to be living there own lives. The only one not to get a beating was King because with every rage Chesmo had she would shield him away resulting in her own beating. 
 

By the time King had reached the age of twelve he was pretty intelligent, his mother being from a good schooled family taught him to read, write, do maths and an array of other things. He decided it was time to get away from this life and made a plan to run away, though his mother wanted to stay no matter how much King begged and pleaded, she did, however, help with getting King prepared and ready to find a better life. The opportunity showed itself when a traveling magician was coming to the nearest town where Moreen had been doing some work. The magician was a growing act, with every town he performed at his popularity grew. It was the Herman the great. 
 

Moreen after a few failed attempts managed to get a meeting with the magician, they sat and for hours, most of the conversations were Moreen pleading and trying her best to let her son travel with the show across America. Herman brought the conversation to a halt and accepted to take King into the business and travels as long as he would earn his keep.
 

King joined up with Herman the great along with all of his other performers and stage crew who worked together like a perfectly running clock to create the magnificent shows. Over the next five years, King worked as hard as he possibly could, between each show in each town traveling from the east to the west of America. King learned all sorts of tricks and illusions from the great magician himself,  the one thing that King picked up and did with great ability was to use sleight of hand. Having this skill came in fantastically to Hermans side business, a side business of thievery and conning folks out of extra cash. As great as the magician was and as much as he earned from the shows a little extra never went a miss.  During each and every show King and some of the other crew members would walk in around the audience selling gifts and trinkets, whilst doing this King would pickpocket and commender anything of value from the unknowing victims and store then in a secret section of the selling trays. 

 

The successful show and criminal side business almost came to an abrupt end in 1883 when a random off duty lawman came across the Hermans camp and caravans whilst everyone was tending to a large evening show, the lawman took it upon himself to snoop in and around the place. He found a couple of suspiciously hidden small chests, he forced open the locks and inside was cash and other valuables along with some jewelry. The jewelry matched the description of the reports handed in by victims of the previous nights' shows.

 

After another successful evening Herman, King and the rest of the crew returned to camp only to be met with the lawman. The lawman now with the town sheriff and other lawmen all armed with rifles was a terrifying sight for Herman and crew. After questioning everybody not one person admitting to any crime and pretending to have no idea about the stolen items. The sheriff was having none of it and proceeded to clap cuffs on everyone and stuff them into caged wagons.

 

With all the crew members being locked up in cages, King now seventeen years of age and very mature and clever for that age, could not bear the thought of and sight of his family he cared for being punished and possibly leading to being hung for the crimes. He stood upright and strong in front of the sheriff. King gave the sheriff a full confession and gave the sole blame to himself and it was he alone who was taking the money and items. Kings cunning words and acting at that moment made the sheriff believe him and in that got Herman and the rest of the crew released. The sheriff threw King into a wagon and set off to put King in the town jail.