I had a difficult meeting with my boss today. To recap:
When I told him I was not going to North Dakota with him, he all but threatened to sabatoge my career. I believe he got carried away and went further than he intended with what he was saying, but I wasn't sure exactly what he meant.

When I asked to continue the current study, he flat out said "I will not give any money to MU after I leave". Which meant the research program I had worked so hard to develop and which I intended to use as the basis of job applications for the future was dead.

I thought that was the end, but another prof suggested I talk to the dept. I didn't tell my boss I was doing that because I wasn't sure if his refusal was a stab at my career, a stab at MU, or some other reason. If the dept was a potential source of bridge funding, why hadn't my boss suggested it? Why the flat-out refusal and no effort to work with me to find another solution?

Today I got an initial favorable response from the dept, followed up with instructions to talk to my boss. I thought it was likely he would be angry that I'd gone behind his back. I was angry too. It was a difficult meeting, I like to say an animated discussion (a bit of an understatement), but we cleared the air. He was upset and believed I had acted unprofessionally although he was willing to consider that perhaps I was in survival mode. I had a whole lot of accusations about his behavior which I flung right back at him and...

amazingly, he apologized. He explained why it wasn't possible for him to fund my rats even if he wanted to, and that he didn't make an effort to find another solution because he didn't think it through.