IN MEMORY OF A FOX-HUNTING CAT

At first, I was delighted to see the vixen fearlessly approaching the terrace in the evening, taking her place among the cats on the hot flagstones. Immobile as sphinxes, the three tabbies seem charmed by the hush of that magic hour when the birds have gone to roost and the crickets have not yet begun their all-night chorus. The cats seem to be meditating but are probably just waiting for the stirrings of the rats which make their nests in the brambles on the banks of the stream.

I had often heard the peculiar barking of the foxes as they flitted across the mist-shrouded fell on winter nights: a sort of tinny laughter which drove Rupert, my ageing black Labrador, into a frenzy. His throaty howl made me hesitate to go outside to see what was the cause of his rage. In the moonlight it was possible to make out these “little children of the night” calling to each other as they flushed out rabbits, effortlessly crossing the cliff Rupert was incapable of climbing and where grazing cattle sometimes fall to their deaths on the rocky path below. Even before Rupert had died the vixen began to get bold, taking a siesta on a rock under the vines, but it was not until I had buried my watch-dog that she wandered into the outhouse and gobbled up the cats’ leftovers.

Don Prospero, my caretaker, dubbed the fox “Ramona” after a girl in a Chilean soap opera who passes for a farm lad for some dark reason. The vixen belongs to the culpeo family or, to give the scientific name, Pseudalopex culpaeus. She is about half the size of a big dog, grey overall like a wolf but russet on the hindquarters and brush. Prospero maintains she is a “chilla”, a smaller, whiter fox but the rangers on the nearby “Bell Mountain”, which Charles Darwin climbed in 1836, tell me this species is never spotted at less than 1,200 metres.

Along with all foxes and wild cats (the puma is sometimes spotted round here), the culpeo has been protected by law since 1980. In the past there was widespread hunting of foxes as well as “lion-hunting” (pumas are called “leones” by the locals). The sport was justified by the contention that pumas are capable of killing and devouring cattle while foxes kill kid goats, not to mention hens. The law, however, is not always respected. On a sheep farm in the south the workers are apparently under orders to trap foxes and deliver the pelts to the owner. One of these employees recently received a month’s prison sentence. Despite such draconian measures, I have seen rag, tag and bob-tail hunts riding out from town, dressed not in the colourful ponchos and hard straw hats they ought to be wearing as Chilean cowboys but turned out in baseball caps and garish waterproofs, followed by a pack of mangy “hounds”.

English merchants introduced fox-hunting to Chile in the late nineteenth century. We learn from a correspondent of the Illustrated London News that a Mr Berry kept a pack of hounds at his retreat “The Foxes” in the hills above Valparaiso. The savage brown and white mongrels used to kill foxes today are no doubt the descendants of Mr Berry’s dogs. The “humble” countryfolk who flout the law by training them for the chase are aided by mobile phones and pick-up trucks rather than horses and horns. Chilean foxes are reputedly very smart, outwitting the dogs by circling caves and hiding in them while another fox takes over as in a relay race. They also know how to “play the Indian”, as the Spanish phrase has it, by pretending to be dead.

I was a little apprehensive about the safety of my cats when Ramona came close to the house, but they were not in the least afraid of her and were soon happy to share their territory with a fox as they had done with Rupert. The one exception to this promiscuity was the queen, Clio. She kept herself aloof, reclining in the hollow of a granite rock which the Incas had used for grinding gold. A suitable throne for this proud individual with white socks and soft grey fur who was rescued as an abandoned kitten in Santiago, passing, in feline terms, from rags to riches. Clio lived a double life. The only pet who slept on my bed, she refined her vocation as a gourmet. Her licking of the lips and contented muttering were noticeably graded, depending on the treat. Live oysters produced the noisiest vote of thanks, followed by raw shrimps, clams and mussels.

She was the most nocturnal of her ilk and a tireless huntress. Whenever she proudly dropped a rabbit on the mat, I rewarded her with the innards before baking it in my wood -fuelled oven with rosemary, honey and orange. Thanks to Clio, I enjoyed partridge and quail without ever having to fire a shot.

The vixen seemed to want to play with Clio, running around in circles and scraping her feet, challenging the cat to fight her. Clio would stand guard over an avocado the fox was itching to eat and when she came close, rush at her and expel her from the orchard. A fox leaping a stream with a cat in full cry is a sight wondrous to behold! There can be no prints of this scene hanging on pub walls.

Clio began to suffer from a type of ringworm or scabies. I put her on pills prescribed by the vet but she failed to respond to the treatment. Although she was getting weaker, she still spent every night out, coming to scratch on my bedroom window at dawn. She curled up on my chest and put her paws on my neck with a tenderness which seemed to say, “I know I am not long for this world.” Then one morning she failed to show up. I combed the mountainside, calling for her as I had done many times before. But this time I knew she would not come back. After three days I found her ripped corpse under an apple tree. I have no doubt that the vixen got her. Clio had bravely stood her ground, defending her territory to the end. May that be her epitaph, on the stone that marks her grave in the shade of an old avocado tree.