My Journey Part 8: The Panic

Pearly was considerably softened up after numerous blows to the head so he was rather compliant when I questioned him- in fact it was a challenge to keep him sitting up. I jokingly chided him and tried to ease the situation by regaling him with amusing anecdotes from my recent adventures. He was having trouble seeing forward as his eyes kept rolling back into his head so my only recourse was the obvious: I swatted him across the other side of his head where it was less swollen. I did not achieve the desired result until about an hour later. It seems Pearly responds best to at least two dozen firm blows, at roughly five minute intervals, to either side of his brainpan.
I made him a tea of  moss steeped in marsh water and he seemed to come to his senses, although he was convinced I was "Lippy The Lion" and he was "Hardy Har Har" for at least another hour. I let him sleep it off and in the morning the sun came up and Pearly's swelling had gone down. We spent a good part of the morning foraging for food. Since I was preparing a meal for two I had to use my boot grinder to make some flavorful sausage patties. I'm glad dad invented the grinder mechanism in the heel of my left boot. It saddens me to think that poor old dad never patented this fine invention.
Here's my dad's detailed schematic that was never sent to the Canadian patent office:

He used to say "son, a man's boot is the perfect shape for a meat grinder, and don't let anybody tell you different!" Oh the fun we used to have! I treasured moments like that because I didn't get to spend an awful lot of time with dad - he being a professional hobo/sausagemaker and all.
Anyway, we gathered the day's catch and I took my boot off and set it firmly on a lichen covered rock. (lichen, nature's no-slip-grip!) I stuck the turning handle in the socket on the side of my heel and then started throwing in the ingredients:
Berries, pine needles, some salamanders, grubs, a few frogs, some sand and moss for filler and one egg.
I ground the sausage,formed some small patties and then left them on a rock for the sun to bake them. Of course, this being northern Saskatchewan, it would be quite a while before they reached the proper temperature. We whiled the time away with some gentle interrogation.
I was curious as to why Pearly was dressed like a giant badger and his explanation was quite simple. With me gone from Angus Hat, he got lonely and began longing for Leona, the badger he had lived with for so many years. They eventually broke up because he grew tired of living underground in the dark and she could not reconcile in her heart that they were different. She thought that it would be too much for her brood, seeing as how "daddy" was much larger and generally hairless. She was fearful that all the other little badgers in badger school would mock and taunt her kids. She knew that badger society was not yet ready for mixed relationships.
Pearly had a lot going against him but he was convinced that if he wore a badger suit, it wouldn't be so bad. 
I tried to dissuade him from pursuing this lofty dream of his but he just burst into tears and ran off into the woods. I thought about following after him but my attention was quickly drawn to the far side of the nearby bog. There were panicked screams, otherworldly shrieks and howls!
Thankfully, my years of  training in Paranormal Investigation Theorizing and deductive analysis served me well: I decided to walk towards where the sounds were coming from.
(to be continued)