Not sure if this directly lets you meet The Bastard, but I remember purposefully "throwing away" my knife that the game starts you out with (just to see if I could, lol) + revisiting the forest creek repeatedly during the early days of staying in the town. Hope that helps!
[Possible Spoiler Alert: After meeting either Jak or Will, there's a chance of them intervening when you encounter The Bastard. Not sure if the other LIs come in to help, but that's what happened on my playthrough.]