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Name: Tim Pierce
Age: 36
Occupation: Editor of the Paxton Roundup & Novelist
Affiliation: Top Hand for The Cowboy Mafia
Gender & Pronouns: Man (he/him)
Faceclaim: Justin Johnson Cortez
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tw asphyxiation, death, missing and murdered indigenous women, murder
Tim's birth certificate might have Sonora, Mexico on it, but he remembers nothing of where he descended from. He remembers very little of Paxton in his childhood memories, either. What Tim remembers is the reservation right on the town's border, which felt more like its own town than a part of Paxton.
Like most kids growing up on a reservation out in rodeo country, Tim took to things like bull riding and calf roping. Naturally, this caused Tim to make friends on and off the reservation, which served him well in the long-run.
For years, the Pierce family held onto their small plot of land in the reservation. His mom taught at the small middle school and his dad raised sheep. This mix of academic and blue collar led Tim to find a balance early on in life.Â
Writing was a constant for Tim -- unknown to most of his rodeo and reservation friends. He was telling stories before he knew how to write. As a child, Tim was just as likely to win a prize for his writing as he was for mutton-busting.Â
As Tim got older and continued going to school and rodeos, he had no choice but to accept Paxton as his hometown. The reservation had an elementary school and a middle school, but the high school was hardly a school. Tim's parents moved into the central part of town to help Tim and the rest of his siblings integrate with the rest of Paxton.
Tim, unlike his siblings, integrated better. Most of the guys he hung out with at rodeos, like Kincaid Hollis, were at the same high school. He joined the school's newspaper, which was his first soiree into journalism.
As his graduation year crept closer, Tim realized that he needed to compete in the events that he was most likely to win. In this case, that was calf tying. Between writing for the school's newspaper and competing at rodeos, Tim managed to diversify his college application while putting away money in preparation for college applications, books, and housing.
Tim managed to get into Arizona State University. It was here where Tim earned his Bachelors of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communication. For the first few years after college, Tim stayed in Phoenix and wrote for a local news station, but there were stories brimming on the back of his mind.Â
Things got interesting when Tim wrote and published his first novel. The novel featured a Native American protagonist in the neo-Western genre. The first book signing Tim had he decided to take a stand for missing and murdered and indigenous women. The act of arriving at his own book signing with a red handprint across his mouth didn't go over well with his publisher or the TV network -- they didn't appreciate the surprise of it all.Â
Needless to say, Tim took his stand and continued taking his stand. It never mattered where he lived, the reservation was his hometown and Paxton was a town he lived in.Â
It was between his second and third novel, and just after he landed a job with the Paxton Roundup, when Tim earned his brand. It was more of an accident of sorts.Â
To this day, Tim stands firm in his dedication to the reservation. Years ago, that dedication took the form of tracking down an individual who harmed a teenager on the reservation and making sure consequences were felt. When the news story broke about a death on the reservation, an apparent asphyxiation, only Tim and the Cowboy Mafia knew the whole truth.
These days, Tim feels like his brand is a physical representation of his stance. His allegiance to the Cowboy Mafia and Paxton marks his history, but the brand lies just above his heart where the reservation belongs.Â
When Obsidian Holdings started entrenching itself deeper into Paxton, Tim started to write on the changes to the community. At first, these stories were a warning to Paxton and the reservation alike. Now, these stories feel more like a constant string of exposĂŠes. Tim knows with each story printed, Obsidian Holding's target on his back gets larger.
The thing is Tim's grown up on stories like this one and he knows that if he and the rest of the Cowboy Mafia manage to keep Paxton standing, then that's one less threat towards the neighboring reservation. The problem with the stories are that Tim knows how they end, but that doesn't mean he's giving up anytime soon.
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Tim very much views it as their journalistic responsibility to the town to report on Obsidian Holdings. Itâs drawn some heat, as the Paxton Roundup was the first newspaper (at his editorial direction) to break Oceanview Apartments residents being displaced and raising costs. Itâs become his mission to protect the roots of Paxton, and the bordering reservation, and if that means bringing to light how much of a bad actor Obsidian Holdings is, so be it. Tim knows how formidable Obsidian Holdings is as opponent. In the movies and novels, cowboys always win â but theyâre more than aware theyâre in a losing game. Itâs a delicate balance, but while they might have given up some of their journalistic integrity with their brand, they feel steadfast that if Obsidian Holdings gets bad enough rap, theyâll withdraw. Tim works hard to break every bad story about Obsidian that they can with the belief that if Paxton wins there is one less threat to the reservation nearby.
Inspiration
James Dutton (from Yellowstone: 1883), Mr. Edwards (from Little House on the Prairie), Marvin (from Frybread Face and Me)
Aesthetic
Hooves pounding on dirt, the bleat of a trapped lamb, newspaper ink staining fingertips, stacks of books strewn about a room, the furious clack of a keyboard, clouds of dust kicked up, stars on the horizon
