They do, his mother confirmed, and Junco let out a soft exhale of awe. The idea of sleeping from up high, with your head pointed at the ground and your feet at the sky seemed like such a strange, impossible feat. Junco imagined the Inlet herd with their hooves in the high pine branches, dangling as they all slept. It was a silly image and it made him giggle.
He nodded at his mother’s advice to be quiet before she gave him a playful bump. With a squeal and a toss of his head, Junco was quick to follow behind her, his long, skinny legs eating up the ground beneath him as he chased after his mother. Come on! She encouraged, and Junco offered a few excited kicks that briefly slowed him down, but were just plain fun to do. A little squeal burst out of his lips and he threw his body forward again, leaning into his run as he raced even faster than before.
Junco caught up to his mother just as she began to slow. He did too, his stop a little less graceful and more bouncy as he carried out the energy from his run into an eventual pause. His little sides visibly lifted and fell with the breaths he was taking, but Junco felt far from winded. He felt alive! His bright eyes looked at the entrance to the cave and then back to his mother. You first, she said, and Junco’s golden eyes (so alike his father’s) slid away from her and back toward the dark cave ahead.
He could see the inside was rock and earth, worn away by time. But the further in it went, the further it was from the light that shone down over the entrance, and all Junco could see was pitch black. Still, despite brief apprehension of the unknown, Junco was too curious to turn tail and hide from a little bit of darkness. Grinning, he lowered his head and stepped carefully inward, listening to the dull thud his hooves made on the packed earth and the way they gently bounced and echoed as he went further into the cave entrance.
“How far back does it go, Mama?” He asked in a hushed whisper, looking up at her with wonder.
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