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Lennie said, "Tell me how it's gonna be."

George had been listening to the distant sounds. For a moment he was business-like. "Look across the river, Lennie, an' I'll tell you so you can almost see it."

Lenie 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 broght out Carlson's Lugar; he snapped off the safety, and the hand and gun lay on the ground beside 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 another man answered. "Go on," said Lennie.

George raised the gun and his hand shook, and he dropped his hand to the ground again.

"Go on," said Lennie. "How's it gonna be. We gonna get a little place."

"We'll have a cow," said George. "An' we'll have maybe a pig an' chickens. . . an' down the flat we'll have a . . . little piece of alfalfa----"

"For the rabbits," Lennie shouted.

"For the rabbits," George repeated.

"And I get to tend the rabbits."

"An' you get to tend the rabbits."

Lennie giggled with happiness. "An' live on the fatta the land."

"Yes."

Lennie turned his head.

"No, Lennie. Look down there across the river, like you can almost see the place."

Lennie obeyed him. George looked down at the gun.

There were crashing footsteps in the brush now. George turned and looked toward them.

"Go on, George. When we gonna do it?"

"Gonna do it soon."

"Me and you."

"You . . . an' me. Ever'body gonna be nice to you. Ain't gonna be no more trouble. Nobody hurt nobody nor steal from 'em."

Lennie said, "I thought you was mad at me, George."

"No," said George. "No, Lennie. I ain't mad. I never been mad, an' I ain't now. That's a think I want ya to know."

The voices came close now. George raised the gun and listened to the voice.

Lennie begged, "Le's do it now, Le's get that place now."

"Sure, right now, I gotta. We gotta." And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie's head The hand shook violently, but his face set and his ahnd steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering.

John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (Penguin, 1965), 104-105 (end).