Thursday, April 9, 1998 | 10:56 a.m.
In 30 seconds, the time it takes to lead a cow around the indoor arena at Gallagher's, Lund must decide what the animal will look like as meat in a grocery store and how much to pay for the beef when it's still on the hoof.
If veteran cattle buyer Lund likes the cow and the price is right, the animal will be burger patties in less than 72 hours - after a truck ride to a California slaughterhouse where a butcher is waiting.
"This business is a lot more than sitting there waving your hands," says Lund, whose quick wrist motion signals bids to the fast-talking auctioneer.
Gallagher's, Nevada oldest auction yard, is about buying and selling, dollars and cents. It's also a cattle-and-cowboy way of life that's vanishing in other parts of northern Nevada.
"This is church," says Mickey Laca, a Fallon farmer who works at the once-a-week Gallagher's auction.
Each Wednesday - except for one holiday week between Christmas and New Year's - Lund, Dave Stix Sr., Louis Guazzini and the rest of the old-time buyers show up at Gallagher's on South Allen Road to trade insults, tell stories and outsmart one another.
The Wednesday ritual starts about 9 a.m. with breakfast and gossip at the auction yard's Cow Patty's Cafe (where 11 different kinds of hamburgers are listed on the menu) and ends when the last animal is sold in the afternoon.
"I've been here every Wednesday since I got out of school, for 38 years," says Stix, a longtime Fernley rancher and champion boxer at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Tim Gallagher, whose father, Tom, moved from Los Angeles to Fallon and opened the yard in 1960, runs the operation. It's a mom-and-pop deal, with help from friends.
Most of the folks at Gallagher's grew up together. Now, they're buying and selling one another's cattle, pigs, lambs and other livestock.
"Dave (Stix) used to work for me," says Lund, who lives in Stockton, Calif., but is a Gallagher's regular. "Now we bid against each other."
When the bidding starts, most of the friendly conversation stops. Cattle buyers compete in an every-man-for-himself free enterprise game where winners and losers are determined quickly.
"Right now, we're all having fun," Stix says of the pre-auction banter. "But when we go in (to the arena) ..."
The arena has four levels of seating arranged in a semicircle similar to an amphitheater. There are 70 seats, including 16 taken from an old railroad car and arranged in the first row where several of the regular buyers sit.
Cattle buyers usually are working on commission for packing plants, which give them orders to fill. The plant operators want a certain type and number of animals in a certain price range.
The arena floor is a large scale, similar to the ones used for trucks at freeway weigh stations.
When animals step onto the sawdust-covered flood, their weights automatically are recorded and flashed in lights on a board above the auctioneer's head.
Bidding is by signals, which buyers often try to disguise. To the uninitiated, it's almost impossible to tell who's buying and who isn't.
"A lot of these guys play games," Stix says. "They're bidding with one hand and shaking their head 'no' at the same time."
Usually, the buyers are looking at two types of cattle, "butcher" and "feeder." Butcher cows are older. They'll be quickly ground into hamburger. Feeders are prime stock, to be fattened up before they become steak.
The buyer's job, especially for the butcher animals, is to figure out in a few seconds a cow's "yield" - how much of the animal will become meat as opposed to waste.
"You can have a cow yield as high as 56 percent or as low as 30 percent," Lund says. "That's where your judgment comes in."
Buyers have to get the most meat for the least money.
There are only two regularly operating auction yards left in the state. Both are in Fallon, a center of Nevada's agriculture business. Gallagher's rival is the Fallon Livestock Auction yard, a 3-year-old facility where cattle sales take place every Tuesday.
On a recent day, 416 animals are sold for $300,000. Gallagher gets 3 percent of each sale.
Gallagher's auctions are open to the public. Anyone can buy or sell.
Along with Lund, Stix and the other professionals, the arena auditorium includes fathers, mothers and kids. Mike Langevin and his 3-year-old daughter, Brace Lane, are from Silver Springs near Fernley. They're at Gallagher's looking for goats.
Mike Langevin doesn't use secret signals.
"I just raise my hand and say, "I want it!" Langevin says.
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