Jonn Beer’s ashes rise in a cloud of dust from the saddle of a rodent, the final voyage of a young Wyoming cowboy killed of his opioid addiction.
Beer, who was just 29 when he died, was one of millions of Americans addicted to OxyContin, a prescription opiate he was first given after he injured his knee falling from a horse.
“They kept prescribing them until eventually he needed them,” says his father, Don Beer.
“Eventually it became what we are today in honor of my son because he left.”
“Some people are drawn to horses because it helps them get through the day with their challenges,” says Don.
“Jonn was one of those guys who felt better the more he was around horses.”
But at some point even they weren’t enough, and with every fall, the need for pain relief—and the medicines that went with it—increased.
On October 31 last year, Jonn died of fentanyl poisoning after ingesting the synthetic opioid, which is 50 times more potent than heroin.
He left three heartbroken daughters.
– tragedy –
Wyoming is frontier country. The roughly half-million residents are spread thinly across tens of thousands of square miles (kilometers) of farmland, prairies, and mountain ranges where soaring summer temperatures give way to howling winter snowstorms.
The demanding demands of the countryside have formed a proud and resilient individual population whose watchword is self-sufficiency.
“Cowboys are meant to be tough, we were born and raised to be independent and depend on no one, and a lot of the things we do we do on our own,” says Rand Selle.
“We don’t have that ability to communicate to go somewhere else and talk and share our emotions and I think a lot of us struggle with that.”
All too often this bottling ends in tragedy.
“We deal a lot with friends and family who are cowboys who have either died by suicide or have an alcohol or drug addiction.”
Jonn’s death was a wake-up call for Rand, who has now founded No More Empty Saddles, a group dedicated to giving cowboys the space and tools to talk about drugs, addiction and how they feel aiming to prevent unnecessary deaths.
“We just wanted to change something,” says the cowboy with piercing blue eyes and a red bandana around his neck.
– ‘To be human’ –
On a Saturday in the small town of Bosler, friends, family and other cowboys gather at a rodeo to honor Jonn Beer’s memory and scatter his ashes – and to do what he loved most.
The air thunders with the sound of hoofbeats as a stallion is released into the sand-filled arena, bucking and kicking the belt tied around his abdomen.
A young man on horseback holds up a hand to remove his Stetson in front of the cheering crowd and shows his way through frenzied seconds of horse rage.
Like dozens of others trying their luck today, this bronc rider falls with a crash to the ground, his mount’s hooves clattering dangerously close.
“Oops, he hit hard. He might need a little help,” the announcer blares through the speaker as men rush in to tame the horse and pick up the seated cowboy.
“No More Empty Saddles” is starting to make a difference to the community it serves, says Sheryl Foland, the group’s mental health manager, and several Cowboys are sharing their stories on the Facebook page.
At events like the rodeo, that starts to translate into real interactions.
“I got here early last night and had a cowboy call,” says Foland.
“He followed us on Facebook and was like, ‘Hey!’
“He just wanted a place to talk and we gave him that.”
Foland uses these gatherings to distribute bulletproof padlocks — nearly three-quarters of the 189 people who committed suicide in Wyoming last year shot themselves — and lockable boxes for storing powerful drugs.
But most importantly, she uses rodeos like this as a chance to get cowboys to accept the full range of their feelings and think about them differently.
“As societies, we’ve learned somewhere that we’re meant to be happy 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and we don’t learn how to be comfortable with uncomfortable thoughts and feelings,” she says.
“Negative feelings arise, that’s part of being human, that distinguishes us from a horse.”
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