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Ever thought of a veterinarian’s workaday world as a 9-to-5 job in a
cozy clinic, with nights free and weekends spent golfing? Not in the
cow country of far West Texas, not in the experience of Doc Edwards,
whose far-flung practice was based at his home and adjacent animal
hospital in Marfa, in the Big Bend Country.
His 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week practice lasted for the better
part of fifty years. During certain seasons of the year he would work
virtually non-stop, sleeping only while his wife drove him on to the
next ranch. He was literally up to his armpits in work:
pregnancy-testing cows, delivering calves, or extracting a deer horn
or mesquite limb from deep in a cow’s throat.
Doc’s practice also included horses, an animal he truly loves; hogs,
not his favorite creature; sheep and goats; and family pets, including
dogs, cats, goats, skunks and turtles. He refused to treat rattlesnakes.
Doc has been stepped on, kicked, run over, stomped, gored, scratched
and bitten by his patients. His was a vocation spent mostly in dust,
dirt, and manure.
Doc’s writing flows in the voice of a true storyteller. Here is the
life of a man who loved his work and practiced it with compassion and
dedication. In these stories, mostly autobiographical, his strong
feelings for the country and the people are evident. He loves the grass
lands, desert, and mountains of rugged Trans-Pecos Texas. His clients
were his friends. He particularly enjoyed the camaraderie of ranchers
and cowboys and appreciated a well-run cow work.
For anyone interested in the ranching and cowboying tradition of the
Southwest, Doc Edwards’ book offers a fresh perspective, the
cow-doctor’s point of view, and it is told with humor and the energy of
an indomitable spirit.
About the Author...
DR. Charlie Edwards was born near Sanderson, Texas, and has spent his
life in the Texas-Mexican borderlands area of West Texas along the Rio
Grande River, leaving only to attend college and to serve in the U.S.
Marine Corps during World War II. He graduated from Texas A&M in 1949
with a degree in veterinary medicine, and began his practice that year
in Marfa, Texas, in the heart of the Big Bend and Davis Mountains area.
His work continued for more than fifty years, and ranged from the Pecos
River to the Rio Grande and north as far as New Mexico. Beloved by family
and a host of friends, Doc passed away in Febtusty 2006.
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Houston 
