Dex had suddenly cast his eyes toward the maple tree on which he'd noticed the munching squirrel a short while before. Already on heightened guard because of his and Cobbs's near proximity, it had been startled from its perch and abruptly gone bounding up the tree amid a loud rattle of branches, dropping the seed pod it had been clutching in its obvious fright. This instigated a sort of chain reaction, the commotion sending a jolt through Dex's tightly wound nerves, prompting him to jerk his head up toward the squirrel, then drop his gaze to the creeping junipers below it--and just a few feet behind Cobbs--to find out what could have sent the little animal fleeing

That was when he saw a dead man about to spring from between two of the bushes in a semi-crouch, his fist clenched around the haft of a long knife.

His face all at once draining of color, his mouth yawping open, too shocked to utter more than a wordless cry of alarm and incomprehension, he thrust out his arm to frantically gesture in Ricci's direction.

Without knowing what was going on except that something had scared the living daylights out of Dex, Cobbs spun on his heels, raised his shotgun, and brought its barrel around to where he was pointing.

Ricci was about to make his move when he heard the spooked squirrel in the treetop, then saw Dex turn to investigate its racket, his eyes sweeping up the tree, then down to land directly upon him and widen with stunned confusion.

There was no time to hesitate. Even as Dex began gesturing wildly--and a split second before Cobbs swiveled his upraised shotgun around toward him--Ricci broke from cover and came at the warden in a scrambling, straight-ahead run, ducking below the shotgun's muzzle.

The gun roared above his head, its load gouging into the tree trunk behind Ricci and flurrying the area with shaves and splinters of bark. Cobbs rocked backward from the weapon's kick, but was surprisingly quick to recover, and managed to chamber another round before Ricci could reach him. Ricci heard the chock-chock of the Remington's pump action and saw Cobbs swing it down at him, and charged in underneath it with his knees bent, then sprang to his full height, grabbed the middle of its barrel with his left hand, and forced the muzzle upward. Cobbs squeezed the trigger on reflex and shot a second load of steel pellets harmlessly into the air.

Without releasing the weapon's barrel, Ricci smashed his right forearm against Cobbs's neck, then hit him twice on the jaw with his elbow while jerking the shotgun around hard to the left.