Excerpt: Dreams Aren't Enough

This is a dream sequence my MC has right around the halway point. There's a little foreshadowing, but it doesn't have much to do with the story itself. It's not a book about slavery. Just a dream.

Over two hundred feet of hand-linked wrought iron chain snaked across the ground. Nineteen other men stood in a line around Martin, fourteen on one side, five on the other. Clamped around their ankles were steel shackles through which the chain was looped, keeping the twenty men together like a set of tug-a-long ducks. Slowly, tediously they walked, left foot in front of the right, in a solitary movement. They functioned as a single force. Not one of them made a bit of difference to the white man riding a long side on his even whiter horse. If one of them dies, no matter. Another gets bought up and picks up where the last left off.
Trudging along to the field, the men walked in silence. Ear-shattering bullwhip cracks sounded each time their pace be came too sluggish or one of them stepped with the wrong foot, followed by the seething sound of sucking air through teeth, trying not to yelp out in pain.
Martin followed in line, five a head of him and fourteen trailing behind. The clatter of the slithering chain distracted him, detracting his focus on the two-step he had been taught to perform. When nineteen left feet moved forward, Martin’s right twitched ahead. He prayed the white man hadn’t seen, but knew the white man saw all.
The taut leather bullwhip unraveled with malicious might across Martin’s bare back. He cried out loud and shouted to the sky on the inside, but merely sucked the murky air through clenched jaws.
“What’s a matter, nigger? Ain’t learned your left from your right?”
Martin continued on.
“Ain’t no surprise. Niggers too stupid to ever learn nothin’. Ain’t that right?”
His face scowled and his mouth shut, he continued to follow along the line.
“I said, ain’t that right, nigger?”
He began to push for ward harder, gaining strength with each step, unlike the rest of the men who were growing weary and fatigued.
“Answer me, boy.”
The white man stopped his even whiter horse and called a cease and desist on the labor line. Nineteen pairs of dirty brown and pink feet halted and turned to attention. One pair remained facing north.
“Listen here, you no good piece a shit. I asked you a question. Now either you answer me or I’ll make sure you don’t say a damned word to no damn body.”
Martin slowly turned to face the white man and his even whiter horse, his eyes to the dirt beneath him. The white man swung his left leg over to the right and jumped off his even whiter horse. Arms akimbo, he stepped, left foot before the right, toward Martin. He leaned his head in closer and took one hand off his hip to crook a finger under Martin’s chin and lift it so the whites of their eyes met. With the stance of a military drill sergeant, he spoke soft and stern.
“Now tell me, boy. Ain’t that right?”
Martin knitted his brow in to a furrow and twitched his lips.
“No, sir. That ain’t right. Ain’t right at all.”
The white man stepped back, startling his even whiter horse. She kicked her feet against the dirt and whinnied.
“What you say, nigger?”
“I said no, sir. That ain’t right.”
The white man suddenly became calm. Not one of the twenty men had ever seen him take on such a harmless tone.
“Well, all right then. That’s the way you think?”
“Yes, sir. That’s the way I think.”
“Very well.”
The white man nodded his head and turned toward his even whiter horse. He reached in to his saddlebag and retrieved a short iron bar which he clasped with in his fat white fist. He turned back and walked toward Martin, both hands clenched.
“I’ll teach your dirty nigger self to disrespect a white man. The rest of you, too. You want to talk back to your owner? That’s fine. That’s just fine by me. But you’ll find in life that the same rules apply when you’re grown as when you’re a child. You disobey, you take on the punishment.”
As quickly as it came, his calm demeanor flew from his soul. Resuming his drill sergeant stance, the white man unfurled his hand, revealing the glittering metal bar.
“No, sir! Not the bit! I’m sorry, sir! Any thing but the bit!”
Against all better judgment, Martin yelled out, but the chance for reparation was gone. In fact, it was never there in the first place. Human instinct told him to run, but he was bogged down by the weight of nineteen other men and two hundred feet of hand-linked wrought iron chain.
“Shut up and open your mouth, nigger. I done told you before I’ll make sure you don’t say a damned word to nobody.”
Martin clamped his jaws tight. The white man stood body to body with him and placed one hand on Martin’s forehead. The other hand, which held the iron bit, closed in on his chin. He pulled his hands apart from each other, prying Martin’s mouth apart. Martin fought back, using his own arms to push the white man away from him and clenching his mandibles tighter, knowing the white man knew better than to murder something he had paid for. Nineteen other men with iron ties threaded with iron chain around their ankles kept their eyes to the dirt as Martin and the white man wrestled. Suddenly, a wave of exhaustion brushed over Martin. He dropped his arms to his side and slackened his mouth. The white man gave his head a hearty tug and Martin’s mouth opened, just far enough for the white man to insert the torturous piece of metal. He breathlessly and wordlessly fixed the bit over Martin’s carmine tongue. Martin’s mouth snapped shut. The white man climbed back atop his even whiter horse and twenty dirty brown and pink left feet moved forward.