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In the last Chapter, the images of the bushes and the green pool summon those of the opening scene of Steinbeck's novella as Lennie remembers Georges cautionary words about where to go if he were to again get himself into trouble:

The sycamore leaves turned up their silver sides, the brown, dry leaves on the ground scudded a few feet.  And row on row of tiny wind waves flowed up the pool's green surface.

As quickly as it had come, the wind died, and the clearing was quiet again....Another littl water snake swam up the pool....

Steinbeck, who believed in the Emersonian concept of the Oversoul in which all creatures are in harmony with nature, depicts the once calm pool of peaceful green as agitated by the wind that blows dead leaves, presaging the peace-shattering death of Lennie as he is shot by George.  But, once Lennie is dead, the quiet will be restored to this forlorn place outside the town named for loneliness, Soledad, as Slim takes George and escorts him away from the cruel men like Curley and Carlson and the lonesome place.