I shouted “Hello! Hello!” but there was no reply.
I peered inside I could make out a pile of hay, a dozen or so animals and a little cabin next to the far wall. As I walked closer toward the hay I could detect a weird smell, I began to see the rough outline of a person lying down on the hay.
“Hello! Hello!” I shouted again.
But there was still no reply and the person did not stir. I edged closer until I could make out that the person was a woman, she had long dark brown hair, was slim and medium height. The smell seemed to be coming from her. She had her back to me so I tapped on her shoulder
“Excuse me miss, I’m looking for work”, but she still didn’t move. I walked round to the front of her and immediately realised she was dead.
She had a dark purple face and a twisted expression on her face, she had her hand round her throat. I doubt she could have strangled herself, her hand had little cuts, like scratches on them like she had been in a struggle and a few of her nails had been roughly toughed and had snapped. I lay her down on her back and closed her eyes, on my foot I felt a hard lump. I dug into the hay and pulled out the strange object, it was soft and furry. When I realised what it was I fell backwards onto my bum and immediately dropped the creature back into the hay. It was a little white and brown puppy.
When I had calmed down I took it in my hand and gently stroked it. It was so defenceless, how could anyone kill such a beautiful little creature. When I had stopped stroking it, I lay the creature back to rest in its grave of hay. My mind was racing, I didn’t know whether to find the owner of the ranch and tell him about the dead bodies or to pretend that I had never seen them. I decided on the latter. I got up and walked out of the stinking barn, I saw a house opposite the barn and a little hut next door with combine harvesters and other farm machinery just to the side of it on the field. I noticed a pole sticking out of the ground and what looked like horseshoes around it, I walked up to it. There were lots of them all scattered around the pole, some were on it others just to the side. I looked back down the lane and I noticed tracks, from a big vehicle, I hadn’t noticed them when I came into the ranch, but I was in a daze of excitement before I found two bodies. My palms were still sweating from that moment.
I stepped inside the little building next door to the house, it had an office, with a couple of big filing cabinets with a desk looking out of the window onto fields and fields of all sorts of crops. “BANG”, I turned round just as I heard the noise it sounded like a large piece of metal slamming into another large piece of metal.
“Hello! Hello!” I shouted, for the third time, but still no reply. I walked out of the little office, I realised that the noise had been the barn door closing in the brisk afternoon wind. I didn’t know what to do, I figured someone had killed the woman and fled in a vehicle, but why kill a poor defenceless little puppy. I didn’t want to work in a ranch with dead people so I walked back out where I had come from.
Just as I walked out onto the dusty road, just as I had given up all hope of a job and settling down with a nice piece of land, the peaceful afternoon was shattered by a loud dull thud. My reflex reaction was to turn towards the noise at once, in the distance I could see birds swarming out from a canopy of trees, they headed towards a mountain in the even further distance. I don’t know why but I felt this sudden urge to investigate the area where the noise had come from. I ran as fast as my legs would let me, but that wasn’t enough, I felt like I needed to be there. I reached the edge of the dense forest, it was very marshy and boggy. I scrambled through the thick undergrowth, I didn’t know how I knew where to go because the noise had not repeated itself, but I kept to my instincts.
I got to the other edge of the forest, where the birds had swiftly taken to the sky. I could hear noises. They were muffled by the sound of the wind rustling in and out of tress, I peered through the branch of a low lying tree, there was a shallow pond between me and a man, who was sitting on the other side of the bank. He was quite stocky and looked like he could pack a punch or two, but he was crying. I thought I had better be careful when I approached him.
“Whats wrong?” I asked.
“Go away”, replied the man.
“If there is something the matter then, maybe I can help you”
“I don’t think so”, whimpered the man.
“Whats your name?” I asked.
“George” was the reply.
“What was that loud noise, earlier”, I queried.
“Nothin”, stammered George.
Suddenly I noticed a mans body float towards me in the pond, the man was very tall and a little thinner than the other man, expect for his big arm muscles.
Immediately I demanded an explanation from the man
“What happened, did you kill him?” I tried to say forcefully, but I knew that it sounded weak.
“YES. YES, I DID!” shouted back the man.
“Why”, I demanded
“Cos' other wise he’d a bin locked up in a cage, an’ I didn’t wan that”.
“ He was my best friend, an I couldn’t stand anythin’ to happen to Lennie unless I did it to em myself.”
“Who else would have killed him?” I quizzed.
“The other people at my ranch, they wanted to hunt em down an lock em up like a dog,” said George.
“What ranch was this?” I asked.
“Jus’ one bout, 2 miles down the road from ere” replied George.
“I’ve just come from one about miles down the road, I saw a dead woman on some hay and a dead puppy too” I recounted.
“Yeah, that was wot me friend did, he is, well was a bit slow and he loved to stroke soft things, silly fella’ dint’ even realise is’ own strength” said George.
“I understand now, I probably would have done the same thing,” I said sympathetically.
“Thanks” welcomed George.
After we had said our goodbyes, I decided to leave George, he needed time to be with his friend and think.
It was getting dark by the time I got back to my log, the sky was a sharp velvet red and the sun was only half-visible. I watched it until it finally dipped down below the mountain distance. I had understood why George killed Lennie and as I settled down for the night, I thought of what an interesting story this could make one day.