The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs

by Michael Ciardi

Upon resuming my jaunt through travels yet uncharted, I wandered onto a breadth of farmland that looked as though it belonged to an age where the brawn of oxen and horses cultivated the landscape. A few unyoked cattle and sheep roamed without direction in fields nearly depleted of vegetation. I suspected the proprietor of this homestead had either surrendered his sense of discipline or met some untimely end. I soon progressed toward a lopsided barn that appeared as unkempt as the expanse on which it was constructed. A random plough horse emerged from the shelter’s doors before I strayed within range of its hasty exit. No stable or fence was in place to contain this animal, which appeared far better groomed than anything else inhabiting the area.

  After further thought, due to a lack of orderliness among these animals, I presumed the property must’ve been abandoned a short time ago. The livestock looked much too hardy to have gone without nourishment for a long period of time. But as I passed through the barn doors’ perpendicular shadows, I distinguished the utterance of something sounding like a cross between a male human being’s voice and the noises a horse might’ve generated. I listened attentively for a few moments, trying to determine if the intonations were indeed designed to ward off unsolicited journeymen.

  I paused at the barn’s entrance, allowing sunlight to spill over my shoulders and illuminate the dwelling’s musty interior. When the outlandish dialogue continued, I peeked my head around the formation of a makeshift stable to witness a single man standing beside a brindle-colored horse. Oddly, the fellow appeared engrossed in a one-sided dialogue with this animal. To an outsider, the man’s guttural neighing, varied snorts, and whinnied phrases sounded as though he culled it from a madman’s vernacular. Because of this peculiarity, I became convinced that this man had suffered from the aftereffects of a yet diagnosed malady of the mind. He wore periodic garb, which consisted of knickers, stockings, and a blousy shirt peppered with just enough stains to indicate his prolonged placement here. His fashion was suitable for an eighteenth-century businessman, although his status in society was belied by a behavior unbefitting for even a peasant drifter. Aside from his irregular form of communication, however, there wasn’t anything visible in his countenance to suggest he lacked a general familiarity of his surroundings.

  Several seconds elapsed before he noticed me watching him. He immediately ceased from his efforts to interact with the horse, but revealed no hospitable gesture toward me. His face contorted into an odious frown that caused me to check my shoes to make certain I hadn’t trudged through a heap of ripe manure before making my presence known. The atmosphere inside the barn, of course, was already replete with such pungent odors, which wouldn’t have sufficiently justified his reaction.

  Since I spoke only English, I tried to converse with this fellow with a proper salutation. But he had already decided that the proximity of ten-feet of straw-laden earth between us was not adequate. Apparently, the mere sight of me repulsed him beyond the conveyance of words. He pranced about the barn’s floor, mimicking the cantering of a horse while simultaneously pinching his nostrils shut with his index finger and thumb. In this instance I considered turning away, but he eventually settled down and verified his command in a language we both recognized.

  “I hast no need for wild Yahoos in here,” he decried. “Be gone, and take that odiferous scent with you.” When I refused to spontaneously oblige his order, he grabbed a rusty hayfork from a stack of wilted straw and waved it over his head like a matador twirling his cape.

  I then told the jittery man to relax and listen. He may not have possessed the physical characteristics of a horse, but his temperament certainly mimicked a nag in line for a glue factory. “I’m a peaceful man,” I proceeded to inform him. “There’s no cause for violence here.”

  “A peaceful Yahoo?” the man grumbled rhetorically. “Do you really think I’m gullible enough to believe such drivel? I’ve been attacked by your repugnant legions before, and certainly have no desire to be defecated on again.”

  The man’s ludicrous gibbering suddenly registered as a legitimate grievance against my kind. This acerbic fellow had already decreed me as a Yahoo twice, which unmistakably confirmed his identity. The misanthropic Dr. Lemuel Gulliver now stood before me. Squandering the better portion of seventeen years traveling to foreign islands helped shape his apparent dementia. By chance or circumstance, I came upon this farm shortly after his unwanted return from Houyhnhnmland. In this aforementioned world, the four-legged animals that Gulliver now worshipped had assumed the roles of civilized beings. The unorthodox beasts that more closely resembled both of us, however, existed in squalor and in servitude to the horses.

  At present, Gulliver was either incapable or unwilling to reacclimatize himself to the environment and habits of mankind. Instead, he retreated to his barn to live among a species that he deemed far more compassionate in thought and action.

  “I know the purpose of this incursion,” Gulliver claimed while still angling the farming tool at me. “But you can inform Captain Mendez that I hast no intention to accompany him on any further seafaring adventures. I plan to stay with the Houyhnhnms from this point onward.”

  “I’m not a shipmate of Mendez’s crew,” I said. “I travel alone.”

  “It’s an improvident practice to trust a Yahoo. Even those who feign their friendship usually hast an ulterior objective.” Gulliver neighed something to a horse feeding in front of a bucket of oats, and the animal simply looked at him oddly with its pecan-shaped eyes. After a few moments, the horse grunted before trotting off between the barn doors. I shifted to one side of its course to avoid being trampled. Gulliver observed my gesture and decided to lower the hayfork, but he still clasped it in case my submissiveness proved to be a ploy to overtake him.

  “Is it even possible for you to ever trust another human?” I asked.

  “That’s a bold question,” Gulliver noted. “My wife Mary believes that my tour hath somehow corrupted the way I behave. But can’t you see the irony in her hypothesis? It’s not possible for a Yahoo to decipher the logical from the illogical. She may want me to help her improve her disposition, but there’s an inherent flaw in this enterprise. Yahoos, as prescribed by nature, cannot be anything other than what they are. A bad breed starts at the seed, doth it not?”

  “What hope does that leave for the rest of us?”

  “I’m afraid we’re doomed. Even my master horse recognized how futile it was to attempt to civilize these beasts. His notion to exterminate the entire race of Yahoos now seems like an ingenious endeavor.”

  Although anything I suggested to this pessimistic man smelled like crushed horse manure in his way of thinking, I decided to reveal my true name along with an obligatory handshake. Gulliver, however, promptly rejected my gesture for camaraderie. “We’ve both been on arduous journeys,” I then told him. “It’s understandable that our experiences have caused a fair amount of bitterness to surface.”

  “What dost you know of my business?”

  By now I had learned to fabricate minor details when necessary in order to avoid awkward exchanges with these characters. “Before entering this barn,” I declared, “I stopped by your cottage to speak with your wife. She informed me of your wanderings and the hardship you’ve endured.”

  Gulliver leered at me as skeptically as he might’ve observed a riled snake intersecting his path. “All but my last destination proved disagreeable,” he conceded. “I can assure you that I hast no desire to dine with Lilliputians or Brobdingnagians in the immediate future. Their petty and sadistic dispositions encouraged me to escape the confines of our species. I’d like to report otherwise on the moral faculty of the Blefuscudians and the Luputans, but alas, I cannot. They are as equally reprehensible in their follies. It wasn’t until I lived among the Houyhnhnms that I discovered my rightful position in this world. As you now observe, I am in the process of making their reality my own.”

  Perhaps this cynical adventurer was indubitably insane, or maybe he was just credulously dup
ed into believing that he had an ability mimic a horse’s temperament simply because he imagined it. In order to gain a little integrity in his eyes, I attempted to persuade him into accepting the concept that not all of any one species was instinctually corrupt.

  “If I am understanding you correctly, you claim that the Houyhnhnms’ good nature and tolerance has impacted you profoundly. If this is the case, why aren’t you living among them in their homeland right now?”

  Gulliver seemed exasperated by my inquiry, but he extended no further threat with the hayfork. He eventually returned the tool to its former place. I interpreted this action as one of partial acceptance. He didn’t move any closer to me, however, until stuffing his nostrils full of lavender and tobacco leaves. “You must pardon my odd habits,” he explained. “Returning to my home hath been no less challenging than I anticipated. I can’t seem to stomach the smell of people anymore, including my own wife.”

  I almost felt obligated to inform Gulliver that the barn’s gamy odors weren’t exactly tantamount to a floral bouquet either. Instead, I focused on his predicament as it currently stood. “You weren’t given a choice to stay in Houyhnhnmland, were you?”

  “Regrettably,” he responded, “my master horse decided that my presence among them was no longer practical. They viewed me as potential nuisance to their harmonious existence and therefore banished me from their ranks.”

  “And you see this as a tolerant choice?”

  “The Grand Assembly’s agenda had much crueler notions in line for the Yahoos. They sought to annihilate the entire race. I proposed a more benevolent solution. Castration seemed like a logical alternative to regulate the population. Eventually, the Yahoos would die out without any mass slaughter.”

  “It sounds like genocide either way,” I said. I found it pitiful that Gulliver was unable to find fault with this flawed justice. Indeed, his sardonic creator aptly named him.

  “We’re far from an unblemished breed,” I then told the delusional misanthrope. “You’ll likely find imperfections in all of our kind if you study us closely. But even with this knowledge confirmed, is it rational to spawn contempt for every man you encounter? Despite all the evil we produce, isn’t there anything about us worthy of praise?”

  Gulliver initially neglected to offer me the courtesy of a response. He instead attempted to compose himself by stepping outside the barn. I followed him while he watched his two horses trot across a sparsely vegetated field. Of course, I dutifully kept out of range of his delicate olfactory nerves. As he observed his four-legged companions, I noticed a tranquility in his mannerisms that was absent before this moment. It was as if a band of warm sunlight permeated his flesh, softening his tone slightly.

  “There’s beauty in truth,” he murmured. “During my visitation among the Houyhnhnms, I discovered that their honesty was so ingrained that they didn’t even have a word to define untruthfulness. Can you imagine residing in a society where the mere utterance of a lie was incomprehensible?”

  Because I had never known a man who didn’t tamper with the truth at some level on occasion, I couldn’t wholly relate to Gulliver’s hypothesis. But as a human being, I also appreciated the convenience of being able to fabricate a circumstance in order to preserve another person’s feelings. Sometimes this sort of social censorship was necessary to evade confrontation. But it was this identical brand of thinking that instigated Gulliver’s sullen commentary on the state of mankind.

  “Wouldst you believe that I converse with my horses four hours every day?” he asked me.

  “It looked like you were engaged in this activity when I approached you.”

  “And you presumably thought I was insane, correct?”

  Since I didn’t want to verify myself as a habitual liar, I nodded my chin and replied, “I assumed your communication was decidedly one-sided. But to be fair, these horses on your farm may not be as advanced as those you’ve interacted with on your last journey.”

  “It may cause some exertion,” Gulliver conceded, “but I will soon master the horse speak here just as I learned it from the Houyhnhnms.”

  “But you must know that your family and friends will never accept this behavior as normal.”

  “Indeed,” Gulliver confessed. “I durst not make a spectacle of my pursuits in front of the wrong Yahoos. They’re closed-minded beasts and wouldst surely punish me for my individuality. But their interference isn’t my primary fear. I’m more frightened by the prospect of never being able to escape them.”

  Gulliver’s gaunt face ignited with a beacon that seemed reserved for epiphanies. Undoubtedly, grandiloquent expectations simmered in his brain now, but since this man had conditioned himself for unrestricted speech, all I needed to do was ask him for an explanation.

  “You look like you’ve just discovered the formula to change excrement into food,” I jested, hoping that Gulliver derived humor from a former incident in Laputa. I should’ve suspected that this man had no aptitude to interpret comedy. He therefore ignored my comment as if I hadn’t spoken anything aloud. Perhaps he was equally transfixed in his own musings to offer my statement any feedback.

  “In all my travels, Corbin Cobbs,” he proceeded, “I’ve extracted one indisputable element. My pledge to separate myself from the Yahoos couldst not hast been achieved without a culmination of hardships. Since I cannot eliminate Fate as being a minor influence in my affairs, I must conclude that your presence with me now hath some significance, albeit unannounced to this point.”

  “I might’ve told you earlier,” I returned, “but since you’ve already branded me as a creature incapable of being forthright, I decided that it was a better idea to remain silent until I fully understood my motivations.”

  My response inevitably reminded Gulliver of the human race’s complexities in comparison to his hoofed allies. After all, the Houyhnhnms’ simplistic system of social order seemed like an irresistible alternative to anyone even remotely disenchanted with mankind’s enterprises.

  “I’ve taken liberty to put your arrival into context,” Gulliver then told me. “It must be an overwhelming undertaking to admit that we—even through practice—couldst never be as predictable as the horses.” Gulliver motioned to the coffee-colored mare chomping on a clump of quackgrass from the remnants of a rotting fence post. “There’s a noble grace in every action of a horse,” he sighed. “The plainness in their purpose makes each one approachable.”

  “It sounds rather boring to me,” I admitted.

  “I’d expect such a daft response from an uncultivated savage,” Gulliver resumed. “But despite your ignorance, I’m inclined to believe that you happened upon my barn in the same way destiny summons lost souls into its circle.”

  “I don’t follow your meaning, Gulliver.”

  “You needn’t be ashamed. It’s obvious that you intend for me to teach you the habits tutored by my master horse.”

  Although I realized it was impolite to chuckle, I hardly managed to conceal my mirth in this instance. Gulliver’s ability to comprehend my intentions seemed as juvenile as his banter with his farmyard favorites. “Maybe you’ve presumed too much from me,” I said.

  “Nonsense. Do you deny that you seek to live in a society unburdened by superficial tendencies? Think of it: if you could thrive without pretense, without fear of judgment or rejection, and be guaranteed a lifespan of seventy to seventy-five years, wouldst that not be agreeable to any Yahoo?”

  “Not at the risk of sacrificing my humanity,” I answered. “Whatever awaits me in my own land, I must endure it and accept how those conditions will change me. It’s the challenges of this environment that sculpt character, Gulliver. No horse will ever know the burdens of our kind. Even if I truly had a choice to alter my identity, I don’t think I’d do it.”

  “Since you lack a willful desire to embrace the dialect and dispositions of the Houyhnhnms,” he stated, “I must presume that you’re resigned to exist as a Yahoo for the remainder of your natural life.”<
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  Gulliver said nothing else to me as he repacked his nostrils with fresh lavender leaves. By the time I finished my rejection of his lifestyle, he had already swayed toward the horses in the field. It seemed appropriate that I had no more power to dissuade him from his beliefs than he did my own.

  Yet a nagging thought plagued me. Why had I visited this man in such a fragile frame of mind unless there was something about his demeanor that resembled me? Did I truly loathe the people on this Earth as much as Gulliver? Perhaps my revulsion for my fellow kind wasn’t as thoroughly as embedded as his detestation, but I wondered if there was a hint of detachment hibernating within me that I simply refused to identify.

  As Gulliver rejoined his horses, his movement became increasingly limber and animated by frivolity. He then forwarded noises at the animals that they presumably recognized. Rather than debate the legitimacy of this interaction, I turned my back to the field and resumed my journey in isolation. But with each advancing footstep I sensed an almost unappeasable urge to double back and embrace the horses with the same fervency as Gulliver. This confliction kept me unbalanced as I desperately tried to recollect a time when I was most at ease with my surroundings.

  Chapter 54

  2:17 P.M.