Marshal Wing--and his blackjack

I mentioned Marshal Wing, the Norphlet, Arkansas City Marshal during the 1940s and 50s, in an earlier posting. Today I want to tell a little more about him. In my novel The Red Scarf, Marshal Wing makes a blackjack swinging arrest of a gang of oil field roughneck that have robbed Doc's Newsstand. How much fiction is there in that account?

Actually, quiet a bit of the story fits Marshal Wing, the blackjack swinging, one armed City Marshal. Yes, his brother Peg, the pool hall owner, had one leg and--believe it or not--his brother Marshal Wing had only one arm. Of course, the folks in Norphlet were a little concerned about a one armed man being able to keep the peace, but after they saw him swinging his blackjack to make an arrest, they knew he could handle the job.

Marshal Wing was a most unusual lawman during a time when the little village was a lot more rowdy than the town is today. He carried a big 45 on his hip, but he rarely pulled it. He believed in keeping the peace with his blackjack. There are numerous stories of how he subdued and took into custody many of the drunk oil field roughnecks and other that were disturbing the peace in the little town.

Ernest Dumas, a columnist for Arkansas Times, remembers his cousin telling of how Marshal Wing took on a crew of roughneck in Peg's Pool Hall. He finally subdued the bunch, but had to have help from Peg after one of the roughnecks managed to get Wing's gun.

According to several witnesses, Marshal Wing and his blackjack were a sight to behold when making an arrest. His one arm moved in almost a blur and the person he was arresting was sometimes struck three times before he fell.

Marshal Wing didn't arrest the men who robbed Doc's newsstand, but he had made enough arrests with his blackjack, while he was marshal, that, in my novel, he had to be the man who caught Doc's robbers---even if it is fiction.