smoke?” Dusty said craning her neck over a bush that had some luscious red berries fat with juice to the point of exploding.

“That’s where we’re going.” Kodi said with a genial wink over his shoulder then turned around a bush towards the smoke. Dusty followed with wide eyes full of wonder.

They weaved endlessly through the field, leaves cracking under their feet, their eyes open and full of question. Then, quiet unexpectedly, they stumbled upon the source of the smoke. A bowl, nearly 100 feet around, dropped suddenly out of the land. Ten foot cliffs lined every side in sight. Thick timbered trees stood high with shrub underbrush heaped in the great shadows of the trees down in the dark hole. And from the center, hidden behind the timber, came the great clouds of smoke steadily rising.

A gentle gust of wind turned the great clouds towards Kodi and Dusty. It came slow and threateningly over the top of the trees. Dusty raised her head to smell it as it passed and winced her nose shut. “Oh! That stinks.”

“Yeah,” Kodi agreed without enthusiasm. His eyes scanned in all directions around the hole. “Now where is that trail?” He asked himself.

Dusty ravished her eyes along the nearby edge of the hole to, but try and she did, she couldn’t find any sign of a trail. “I don’t think there’s a trail.”

“Yeah there is, I’ve been down it.”

“Are you sure?” Dusty asked doubtful.

Kodi shot Dusty an annoyed glance. “Yes. I just can’t remember where it was though.” Kodi and Dusty scanned the edge nearest them for a while longer before Kodi turned to Dusty and motioned along the edge of the hole with his shoulder. “Why don’t we go this way, see if there’s a trail over there?” Kodi turned right and began to move along the edge of the hole.

Dusty followed behind Kodi without a word, all the while looking down at the smoke that rose over the trees. Inside Dusty felt slightly scared. The smoke was so … unnatural smelling. She had never smelled something so foul in her life – except maybe a week old dead skunk. But yet, something about it was familiar. If only she could remember where she had smelled it before?

“So what’s making that smoke? It’s just so … nasty smelling.” Dusty spoke after several minutes.

“Water.” Kodi said flatly. His attention seemed to be concentrated solely on the cliff edge he walked on.

“Water?!?” Dusty laughed. “What water smells like that?”

“Warm water from the spring.” Kodi’s voice held an air of superiority, something like a person who had a secret about another person’s parents.

Dusty didn’t like it, and she thought about saying something, but didn’t. She only stared curiously for a moment at the back of Kodi’s head before she turned her head back to look for a way down.

They walked on for some time around the edge. Going nearly half way around the circle, and still never able to see exactly what was making the smoke, Kodi suddenly shouted out after going around a bush and out of Dusty’s sight.

“AH-HAH!”

“Kodi?” Dusty yelled suddenly. “Are you okay?” She didn’t wait for an answer and bolted around the bush to find Kodi sitting down on the edge of the hole looking down at the forest straight below him.

Kodi turned his head like someone who was about to ask what the question was when he felt Dusty’s presence behind him. “I found the way down.”

Dusty breathed normally. Rolling her eyes she stepped forwards. “Did you have to yell out like that? I thought you fell in.”

Kodi winked as Dust sat down to his left side and cast her eyes down into the great hole in the ground. “I just wanted to see you.” Kodi turned his head back towards the smoke.

Dusty scowled at Kodi, but it was all in fun.

Down below them the straight up and down wall fell gradually away and down into the trees. A trail, barely six inches wide and covered in gravel, zigzagged back and forth from right in front of Kodi’s feet, making it’s way far out to the left, then turning back to the right. The trail made, as Dusty counted, six turns before it vanished into the trees. One misstep anywhere would surly result in a bad roll down into the trees and brush some twenty feet below.

“Well, come on.” Kodi said coming to his feet. He began to edge his paws carefully down the trail; his tail lashed out left and right furriously, keeping his balance just perfect. His paws stopping with every swish of his tail to readjust his center. Coming to the first turn Kodi stopped, examining the turn and how he was going to make it with the wall on his left. It came to him suddenly. With a powerful push of his back legs he threw his hips up into the air and balanced on his front legs. Slowly swinging around - his back paws gliding against the roc - he landed facing down the next turn. “Don’t worry.” Kodi called with a voice full of fear up to Dusty. “Nothing to it.”

Yeah right. Dusty thought as she began her own decent. Doing the same little spin-kick as Kodi did, Dusty flew down the trail hot on Kodi’s trail. After six eccentric turns that all looked on the edge of death, the trail flattened out and fell into the forest.

The trees around them stood high and thick. Leaves blotted the sky above, grass, brush, and sharp thorns cloaked the ground below. They both walked shoulder to shoulder along the – now wide – trail, looking around them in awe.

Like waking from a dream, Kodi suddenly turned his head to Dusty and smiled. Dusty looked so beautiful; her deep eyes looking at the world around her and soaking it all in. Ears swiveled around like tiny satellite dishes to find every sound and noise. Her nose suddenly wrinkled in dissatisfaction. As if she knew that Kodi was watching her, she turned her head and gave a bashful blush of her fur. “What?”

“Nothing,” Kodi turned back to looking down the trail. “It’s just that we’re almost there.”

Dusty squinted her face up in wonder. “So what … or, um?” Not quite knowing what to ask she let it rest with her mumbling

“It’s a hot pool.”

“Hot pool?” Dusty balked. “What hot pool smokes?”

Kodi stopped and turned his body to Dusty, letting the mood and quiet emphasize his speech. “A very special pool.” Kodi winked his right eye welcomingly. Dusty felt a sudden stirring inside her that she hadn’t felt before, and she liked it.

They both continued on wordlessly, and it didn’t take more than a moment for them to come through the trees to the most beautiful pool of water either of them had seen. A florescent blue came up from the depths; so clear was the water that the bottom looked sealed in glass and forever frozen. Around the pool trees stood high and hunched over, a sandbar stretched all around the fringe of the crystal water. Then there, in the center of the pool, water bubbled up like that in a cauldron with smoke rising high above the trees into the blue sky that began to fade into an encompassing yellow as the sun vanished.

“It’s … it’s … just so …”

“Beautiful.” Kodi finished.

“Yeah.” Dusty turned her head to Kodi’s and found him staring deeply at her.

He heaved his chest out and sighed lovingly. “Beautiful.” Kodi began to lean forward to nuzzle Dusty, but stopped short, waiting for Dusty to come halfway to him.

With that Dusty began laughing uncontrollably, raising her head to the sky and almost falling over onto her side she laughed hard enough that the forest around her became still, and her voice echoed off the walls of the caldera they were in. “Where did you learn that?” She scream giggled out. “That’s so corny.”

Kodi looked slightly hurt and drew himself back. Ears flattened against the back of his head he half smiled at Dusty; and looked away diffidently. “It’s something my dad said to my mom at one point.”

“Well,” Dusty winked with a bright light in her eyes and an unmistakable boldness in her voice. “It almost worked.”

Smiling wide and uncomfortably, Kodi spoke slowly, like a young pup to a beautiful girl. “So how close did it come?”

Dusty chuckled and brushed Kodi’s question off by pushing past him and towards the blue water. The grassy trail fell away to the sandy beach, which under Dusty’s paws, felt soothing and warm. She turned her head as Kodi came up beside her and stretched his toes apart. Sand fell between his toes and he grinned. “Warm, isn’t it.”

“Yeah.” Dusty closed her eyes and spread her toes to let the sand slide in. She suddenly opened her eyes and looked at the water. “Is it warm, like the sand?”

Moving forward, Kodi walked with a casual calm. He lifted his right paw and dipped the tip of his toes under the water. Sand and mud dissolved away, and Kodi’s toes came back out clean and white. “Just right I’d say.”

“Is that so?” Dusty stepped forward and up next to Kodi’s side. She raised her left front paw and sunk it three inches down to the bottom of the pool. Ripples steadily fell out away, carrying with them the sand and mud that dropped from her fur. A perplexed look then crossed Dusty’s face, as if she were suddenly put in front of a jigsaw puzzle and told to complete it.

Kodi watched her face with an equally perplexed look. “Dusty, what is it?”