PRESENTATION OUTLINE
A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas river drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. On the sandy bank under the trees, the leaves lie so deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering as he runs among them. Rabbits come out of the brush to sit on the sand in the evening, and the damp flats are covered with the night tracks of coons, and with spread pads of dogs from the ranch.
From the direction of the highway came the sound of footsteps on crisp sycamore leaves. A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down the river. For a moment the place was lifeless.
Then two men emerged from the path and came into the opening by the green pool. The day was going by fast now. Only the tops of the Gabilan mountains flamed with the light of the sun that had gone from the valley. A water snake slipped along the pool, it's head held up like a little periscope.
The deep green pool was still in the evening. Already the sun had left the valley to go climbing up the slopes.
The little evening breeze blew over the clearing and the leaves rustled and the wind waves flowed up the green pools. And the shouts of men sounded again, this time much closer than before.
Lennie turned his head and looked off across the pool and up the ending slopes of the Gabilans. "We gonna get a little place" George began.
The water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting its periscope head from side to side as it swam the length of the pool and came to the legs of a motionless heron that sat in the shallows.
A silent head, and the beak swallowed the little snake while it's tail waved frantically.
George raised his 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 was set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shots rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred and then settled slowly forward to the sand and he lay quivering.
