The lanky cattleman has just completed his daily war of nerves with the rough and tough cattle buyers of Western Queensland. He‘s feeling a bit parched.

It’s been another record day of sales at Longreach’s cattle yards. ‘The Gun’ is tired, hot, and dusty and exudes a faint sweet bovine aroma of cattle and the raw scent of human sweat.

The Landsborough Highway the main artery out of Longreach trembles from the constant caravan of huge triple trailored road trains floating on a hundred tyres each with two decks crammed with cattle. These mechanical behemoths are constantly on the move shifting over 100 beasts at a time. The blast of air horns reverberates through the pub signalling another bellowing load heading East to the coast for processing. It’s all sweet music to Simpson’s ears hidden, as they are, somewhere beneath his sweat rimmed and battered hat.

The day has been successful for Simpson.

Over 4000 cattle were pushed through the yards that day. The likes of which no one, including Simpson has never seen before. Beef is big news in the West and the world can’t get enough of prime Aussie steaks.

Auctioneering is not for the faint hearted or the slow witted. It’s a war of nerves, intimidation and sheer cunning. There is no physcological quarter given. The shrewd buyer wants the best price he can get and so does Simpson, so hard heads lock horns and it’s on for young and old.

He talks of mental duels, ‘holding hands’, fear tactics. It’s baffling to the outsider but it’s Simpson’s job to out think his opponents and theirs to out wit him if they can!

There are big bucks out there for big beef.

“t’s all to do with mental concentration, confrontation, holding your ground and of recognising body language. How your opponent moves, how he paces up and down”, continues Simpson washing the dust from his parched throat.

“At the end of the day it’s who has the most guts”.

The quietly spoken auctioneer is not short of intestinal fortitude himself - he cut off his own fingers once. They had become trapped in a plough.

Ultimately it all comes down to how much you pay for your premium T-bone or rump-or your McDonalds.

Millions of dollars pass through the yards every year. The statistics (like the country they emanate from) are huge. Telephone numbers long. A scruffy looking bunch that would look seriously out of place in a metropolitan glass tower trades big dollars. But out here business is as normal. And with out the necessity of an Armani suit. These men and women represent the boardroom of the West.

Good mates spend the day trying to out phase each other. The shuffling audience of buyers, enshrouded by dust and, by late afternoon suffering from a serious thirst, inspect pen after pen orchestrated by Simpson conducting from the catwalk and watching for a feint here, an intimation there. Any advantage.

Point two of a cent might not sound like much but miss a nod or an almost imperceptable wink and money is lost or won depending on which camp you belong to.

“We did sixty million dollars in cattle alone last financial year and we sold 360,000 head of sheep at around $25.00 a head”, confides Simpson who out of necessity has the memory of your average computers hard drive.

The massive boom in cattle sales is unprecedented and recently the yards have been enlarged to take the load. The Longreach complex is a maze of steel walkways and 258 pens. The complex is worth 1.5 million and has been up graded to cope.

“We sell clean cattle out here. We are tick free with little use of chemicals and we are the crossroads in Longreach for all central and Eastern states. We have cattle trucked here from as far as Alice Springs. All roads lead to Longreach”, says Simpson.

Richard, at sixteen, left school and went buying and selling cattle. He has been in the business ever since. For the last twelve years he has auctioned for Longreach’s Primac-Elders stock and station agents and has never seen business so good.

The foot and mouth tragedy in Britain has proved a boon to cattle sales in Australia. “It’s any ones guess how long it will take Britain and Europe to start rebuilding their herds. It was bad for them”, laments the cattleman.

The future is hard to predict. “With the Aussie dollar being worth three parts of bugger all who knows”, he shrugs.

Much of Australia’s prime beef goes to Japan and the States.

“I sold a bullock the other day for A$1,600. A year ago no one would have predicted such growth or price in the industry”. Simpson slugs down the residue of his cleansing ale thumps the glass down on the bar, and stalks out into Duck Street. He has some private buyers to satisfy before his day ends.

Another mournful blast of an air horn greets him as he vanishes into the sunset - as if in salute.