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Bay, a click and a half away–that’s where he intends to start hitching, as if he’s just come off the trail.
    His feet are soon sore–he is not used to these boots, they are stiff with lack of use. There’s not much traffic, none going his way except for one barrelling logging truck, working overtime on a Saturday. Then he hears the siren, and it’s an RCMP four-wheel running hot, tearing up the mud and gravel. Cold-looking faces stare at him from the windows, but the vehicle speeds on.
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    He is limping as he takes in a spectacular view of Pachena Bay, a flat beach a half-mile long at the foot of a long Pacific funnel. Pachena is also the northern terminus of the West Coast Trail, or what is called Shipwreck Trail for the many wooden vessels lost on the rocks out there, but the Owl’s only interest right now is the old logging road that will get him to the safety ofa city. He detours through the shore shrubbery to the beach, where he gets a long view up the road as it bends east into the mountains. There, to his dismay, he sees a roadblock. A cruiser straddles the highway, a couple of uniforms checking out a campervan for possible escaping perpetrators.
    Faloon retreats to the refuge of a makeshift shelter some hippies must have built from driftwood. Here he stares out at the deserted beach, at the churning clouds breaking apart above the ocean, and then he sets out, slogging through the understory of third-growth timber and clumps of bracken and salal. When he finally ventures near the road again, his feet are killing him. But a warming sun has broken through, and he is maybe half a mile beyond the roadblock.
    He begins to thumb, and as luck would have it, the first vehicle stops–it’s a Crown Zellerbach crew cab, a bearded, burly sixty-something driving, a foreman probably, a bull of the woods.
    Faloon climbs in and says in a husky voice, just breathing the words, “Thanks you. I speaks not good English.” He throws his pack behind the seat, beside a chainsaw and tools and a six-pack of Canadian.
    The driver pulls back onto the road. “You just come off the trail? Where you from?”
    â€œDer Nederland. Gertrude.”
    Folks around here call him Grizzly, he says, and Faloon can see why. He carries on about how he’s a yard supervisor, and he’s going to Lake Cowichan. Faloon says, “Thanks you.” He means it, Cowichan is a fair-sized town with a bus station.
    Faloon is hoping his poor English will discourage conversation, but Grizzly needs to talk, explaining–slowly, so Gertrude can follow–how he doesn’t normally pick up hitchhikers because of company policy, but a lady by herself could be in danger here. “You talk to police at roadblock?” He is speaking Tarzan English so Gertrude can understand.
    â€œYah, very bad happening.”
    He nods. “They say the killer did many other crimes. His name is Faloon, small man but strong like a cougar. He is crazy.” He wiggles an index finger at his head. “Psycho sex fiend.”
    The Owl sits rigidly as Grizzly describes in this basic English what he would do to Faloon if he had his way, slime like him should be castrated before some slippery lawyer gets him off on a technicality. But after an hour of not receiving much response, Grizzly peters out, enabling the Owl to relax a little as he pretends to sleep.
    They follow rivers along the way, raging in the spring, they pass by tree farms and clear-cuts, the sun pulling mists from ditches and road pools. The Owl is starting to see hope rising too. He could slip over to Vancouver, hide himself in the bowels of the east side, maybe call a good mouth who doesn’t sell out clients. He will inquire if the horsemen found someone else’s prints or DNA, and if not he will seek greener pastures. Again comes an image of that fine-looking woman in death, but he quickly blots it out.
    Though his eyes are closed, he senses