As quickly as it had come, the wind died, and the clearing was quiet again. The heron stood in the shallows, motionless and waiting. Another little water snake swam up the pool, turning its periscope head from side to side.
Suddenly Lennie appeared out of the brush, and he came as silently as a creeping bear moves. The heron pounded the air with its wings, jacked itself clear of the water and flew off down river. The little snake slid in among the reeds at the pool’s side.
Lennie came quietly to the pool’s edge. He knelt down and drank, barely touching his lips to the water. When a little bird skittered over the dry leaves behind him, his head jerked up and he strained toward the sound with eyes and ears until he saw the bird, and then he dropped his head and drank again.
When he was finished, he sat down on the bank, with his side to the pool, so that he could watch the trail’s entrance. He embraced his knees and laid his chin down on his knees.
The light climbed on out of the valley, and as it went, the tops of the mountains seemed to blaze with increasing brightness.
Lennie said softly, “I di’n’t forget, you bet, God damn. Hide in the brush an’ wait for George.” He pulled his hat down low over his eyes. “George gonna give me hell,” he said. “George gonna wish he was alone an’ not have me botherin’ him.” He turned his head and looked at the bright mountain tops. “I can go right off there an’ find a cave,” he said. And he continued sadly, “-an’ never have no ketchup-but I won’t care. If George don’t want me . . . . I’ll go away. I’ll go away.”
And then from out of Lennie’s head there came a little fat old woman. She wore thick bull’s-eye glasses and she wore a huge gingham apron with pockets, and she was starched and clean. She stood in front of Lennie and put her hands on her hips, and she frowned disapprovingly at him.
And when she spoke, it was in Lennie’s voice. “I tol’ you an’ tol’ you,” she said. “I tol’ you, `Min’ George because he’s such a nice fella an’ good to you.’ But you don’t never take no care. You do bad things.”
And Lennie answered her, “I tried, Aunt Clara, ma’am. I tried and tried. I couldn’ help it.”
“You never give a thought to George,” she went on in Lennie’s voice. “He been doin’ nice things for you alla time. When he got a piece of pie you always got half or more’n half. An’ if they was any ketchup, why he’d give it all to you.”
“I know,” said Lennie miserably. “I tried, Aunt Clara, ma’am. I tried and tried.”
She interrupted him. “All the time he coulda had such a good time if it wasn’t for you. He woulda took his pay an’ raised hell in a whore house, and he coulda set in a poolroom an’ played snooker. But he got to take care of you.”
Lennie moaned with grief. “I know, Aunt Clara, ma’am. I’ll go right off in the hills an’ I’ll fin’ a cave an’ I’ll live there so I won’t be no more trouble to George.”
“You jus’ say that,” she said sharply. “You’re al-ways sayin’ that, an’ you know sonofabitching well you ain’t never gonna do it. You’ll jus’ stick around an’ stew the b’Jesus outa George all the time.”
Lennie said, “I might jus’ as well go away. George ain’t gonna let me tend no rabbits now.”
Aunt Clara was gone, and from out of Lennie’s head there came a gigantic rabbit. It sat on its haunches in front of him, and it waggled its ears and crinkled its nose at him. And it spoke in Lennie’s voice too.
“Tend rabbits,” it said scornfully. “You crazy bastard. You ain’t fit to lick the boots of no rabbit. You’d forget ’em and let ’em go hungry. That’s what you’d do. An’ then what would George think?”
“I would not forget,” Lennie said loudly.
“The hell you wouldn’,” said the rabbit. “You ain’t worth a greased jack-pin to ram you into hell. Christ knows George done ever’thing he could to jack you outa the sewer, but it don’t do no good. If you think George gonna let you tend rabbits, you’re even crazier’n usual. He ain’t. He’s gonna bear hell outa you with a stick, that’s what he’s gonna do.”
Now Lennie retorted belligerently, “He ain’t neither. George won’t do nothing like that. I’ve knew George since-1 forget when-and he ain’t never raised his ban’ to me with a stick. He’s nice to me. He ain’t gonna be mean.”
“Well, he’s sick of you,” said the rabbit. “He’s gonna beat hell outa you an’ then go away an’ leave you.”
“He won’t,” Lennie cried frantically. “He won’t do nothing like that. I know George. Me an’ him travels together.”
But the rabbit repeated softly over and over, “He gonna leave you, ya crazy bastard. He gonna leave ya all alone. He gonna leave ya, crazy bastard.”
Lennie put his hands over his ears. “He ain’t, I tell ya he ain’t.” And he cried, “Oh! George-George–George!”
George came quietly out of the brush and the rabbit scuttled back into Lennie’s brain.
George said quietly, “What the hell you yellin’ about?”
Lennie got up on his knees. “You ain’t gonna leave me, are ya, George? I know you ain’t.”
George came stiffly near and sat down beside him.
“No.”
“I knowed it,” Lennie cried. “You ain’t that kind.”
George was silent.
Lennie said, “George.”
“Yeah ?”
“I done another bad thing.”
“It don’t make no difference,” George said, and he fell silent again.
Only the topmost ridges were in the sun now. The shadow in the valley was blue and soft. From the distance came the sound of men shouting to one another. George turned his head and listened to the shouts.
Lennie said, “George.”
“Yeah ?”
“Ain’t you gonna give me hell?”
“Give ya hell?”
“Sure, like you always done before. Like, `If I di’n’t have you I’d take my fifty bucks’ ”
“Jesus Christ, Lennie! You can’t remember nothing that happens, but you remember ever’ word I say.„
“Well, ain’t you gonna say it?”
George shook himself. He said woodenly, “If I was alone I could live so easy.” His voice was mo-notonous, had no emphasis. “I could get a job an’ not have no mess.” He stopped
“Go on,” said Lennie. “An’ when the enda the month come-”
“An’ when the end of the month come I could take my fifty bucks an’ go to a . . . . cat house. . . .” He stopped again.
Lennie looked eagerly at him. “Go on, George. Ain’t you gonna give me no more hell?”
“No,” said George.
“Well, I can go away,” said Lennie. “I’ll go right off in the hills an’ find a cave if you don’ want me.”
George shook himself again. “No,” he said. “I want you to stay with me here.”
Lennie said craftily- “Tell me like you done before.”
“Tell you what?”
“‘Bout the other guys an’ about us.”
George said, “Guys like us got no fambly. They make a little stake an’ then they blow it in. They ain’t got nobody in the worl’ that gives a hoot in hell about ’em-”
“But not us,” Lennie cried happily. “Tell about us now.”
George was quiet for a moment. “But not us,” he said.
“Because-”
“Because I got you an”
“An’ I got you. We got each other, that’s what, that gives a hoot in hell about us,” Lennie cried in triumph.
The little evening breeze blew over the clearing and the leaves rustled and the wind waves flowed up the green pool. And the shouts of men sounded again, this time much closer than before.
George took off his hat. He said shakily, “Take off your hat, Lennie. The air feels fine.”
Lennie removed his hat dutifully and laid it on the ground in front of him. The shadow in the val-ley was bluer, and the evening came fast. On the wind the sound of crashing in the brush came to them.
Lennie said, “Tell how it’s gonna be.”
George had been listening to the distant sounds. For a moment he was business-like. “Look acrost the river, Lennie, an’ I’ll tell you so you can almost see it.”
Lennie turned his head and looked off across the pool and up the darkening slopes of the Gabilans. “We gonna get a little place,” George began. He reached in his side pocket and brought out Carlson’s Luger; he snapped off the safety, and the hand and gun lay on the ground behind Lennie’s back. He looked at the back of Lennie’s head, at the place where the spine and skull were joined.
A man’s voice called from up the river, and an-other man answered.