Chapter 2
Nicole drove up the dusty road leading to Earp Ranch. Waverly wasn’t kidding when she said the ranch was old and run down. The fence in the front was broken in places and the mailbox post was crooked.
Waverly ran out to meet her, wrapping her in a warm hug, “Nicole! Thank you for coming out! Come, meet my sister,” Waverly grabbed Nicole’s hand and drug her inside.
‘Wynona!” Waverly called out when they entered the house.
A women with auburn hair, a leather jacket and boots came down the stairs, “What, Waverly?”
“This is Nicole, the one I told you about who was willing to help out around here?”
“By willing, I’m assuming you didn’t tell her it was haunted?” Wynonna said as she descended the last few steps, “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Waverly’s sister, Wynonna,”
“It’s nice to meet you as well,” Nicole said, “What’s this about haunting?”
“So I was right, you didn’t tell her,” Wynona laughed.
Waverly glared at her older sister, “That’s because its not actually haunted. It’s just an old farm house in the middle of nowhere, it’s going to make weird sounds,”
“I mean we could always sage it to make sure,” Nicole offered with a slight smile.
“See, this girl has a good head on her shoulders,” Wynonna clapped Nicole on the back. Then grabbed her keys, “If you need me, you know where I’ll be,”
Wynonna headed out the door, letting the screen door slam behind her. They stood in the entryway just looking at each other for a second.
“Where is she going?” Nicole asked.
“I’m not really sure, actually,”
Nicole raised an eyebrow, unsure of what that meant, but also not wanting to over step as a new friend. She decided to change the subject, “Ok, well, what are we working on today?”
“How much experience do you have putting up fence?” Waverly asked.
“I grew up on a farm, so a decent amount,” Nicole said.
Waverly sighed, “Oh thank God, because I have no idea what I’m doing, and we need to replace the whole front section,”
Nicole laughed, “Well, I’m happy to be you’re knight in shinning armor anytime,”
“Watch out, I might actually take you up on that,” Waverly said as she lead Nicole out to the barn.
Nicole smiled and followed, pulling her work gloves out of her back pocket.
“So we already have everything we need loaded into the truck, we just have to drive it out there,” Waverly motioned towards and old, light blue, Ford F250.
Nicole stopped, “I’ll walk,”
Waverly had the driver side door open, she stopped to look at Nicole, “Ok, suit yourself,” she shrugged and hopped up into the truck and fired up the engine. She cranked down the window, “Last call, cowgirl,”
Nicole broke out into a wide grin, “Alright, wait for me,”
She hurried around the truck and hoped inside. Waverly put the truck into gear and pulled out onto the path.
“So how much fence are we talkin’?” Nicole asked as she watched Waverly shift through the gears in the old truck.
“About a mile, it’s going to take us a couple days,” Waverly said.
Nicole let out a whistle, “Oh, that’s going to be more like a week, minimum,”
“Really? Shit,” Waverly thumped the steering wheel, “Champ said it would take a couple days, max,”
“Maybe if you hired a crew to do it,” Nicole said, “but if it’s just the two of us, it’s going to be a slow go, especially if they are set in concrete. No offense, but can you even lift the fence posts?”
Waverly side-eyed Nicole, “I might be small, but I’m strong. I will need help standing them up though, at 5 foot nothing, it can be pretty hard for me,”
Nicole chuckled, “I bet. Hey, speaking of Champ, where is he?”
Nicole could see Waverly’s shoulders fall, “He should be by later today. He’s all but useless before noon,”
“So if you hadn’t run into me last week, you would be doing this by yourself today?” Nicole asked.
Waverly brought the truck to a stop, “Yes ma’am,”
Nicole was never good at biding her tongue, “Well, that would have sucked,”
“Yeah, thankfully you came riding in on your horse, I saw the glint of your suit of armor and knew you were the women for the job,” Waverly gave her a wink.
“It’s lucky for you that my brother and I put up 3 miles of fence last summer,”
Nicole hoped out and looked at the expanse of split rail fence that they would have to put up, but first they had to get rid of the old decrepit fencing that was left over from, more than likely, when the farm was settled. Nicole groaned internally when she realized it was a split rail fence they were putting up, and that the old fence hadn’t been taken down first.
“We have to pull all of those old fence posts, unless you’re trying to save them,” Nicole said pointing down the line into the distance.
“Most of them are rotted, so we might as well pull them all,” Waverly said.
“Looking at this, we aren’t even going to put posts in today. We should go back to the house, unload the truck and get tools,”
Waverly sighed, “I’m sorry, I probably should have consulted you before dragging you out here,”
Nicole looked down at the girl next to her; she looked defeated. Nicole felt bad, but she was just being frank, “Hey, you have nothing to be sorry for. How were you supposed to know? We can go back, get a plan of attack worked out, and get you some work gloves, I wouldn’t want those pretty hands of yours getting all splintered up,”
Waverly blushed slightly, “Alrighty, are you sure you are going to survive multiple trips in a Ford?”
“Well, the company sure does help make it bearable,” Nicole gave her a wink before running around to the truck and getting in.
They drove back and Nicole watched as the fence went by, taking in what they had in store. Once back they stacked the fencing in the barn to keep it out of the elements.
“Where are the tools around here?” Nicole asked.
“We should have some in the barn, but no guarantee about what’s in there,” Waverly said.
They walked in and Nicole looked around. She found what they needed quickly enough. It almost seemed as though someone had intended on doing this same job, long ago.
They loaded up the supplies and some water and headed back out. Nicole was pleased that she also found an old tractor jack. The sun was a quarter the way into the sky before they got started. The air was crisp but warming up, the wisps of fall being pushed out by what was left of the summer.
The first couple fence posts were rotted through and easy enough for Nicole to push over. The work was slow and hard, but they were making a good pace, all things considering.
“I think we might have gotten lucky, so far none of these posts are set in concrete,” Nicole said as she wiggled a post out of the ground.
By the time the midday sun was in the sky, Nicole had the sleeves of her flannel rolled up to the elbow and more than one streak of mud on her face. Waverly was drilling holes and fixing the rig they made, designed to let Nicole get a grip on the post with the tractor jack so she could rip them out of the ground.
After each post was pulled out, Waverly would remove the rig from the post while Nicole jacked the next one out of the ground. Once both were out and the rigs removed, they would load them into the truck.
They worked like this, methodically, silently. Nicole would occasionally force Waverly to take a break. She was strong, but Nicole could tell she wasn’t used to this kind of physical labor.
They stopped and headed back to the house for lunch, unloading all of the old fence posts from the truck bed before they headed inside.
“What do you want for lunch? I’ve got stuff for sandwiches, left over lasagna, salad…” Waverly offered up as she poured them each a cold glass of water.
“What ever you’re having, I’ll happily eat,” Nicole said. She felt a bit embarrassed she hadn’t brought a lunch, but when Waverly described the job, she thought they were doing small sections, a two-day job tops.
“Ham sandwiches?” Waverly asked.
“That sounds amazing,” Nicole smiled.
Waverly made the sandwiches and they sat on the pouch eating. Neither of them said it, but they could both feel the relief of the other to be sitting down.
“So, not exactly the job I thought I was asking you to do,” Waverly said sheepishly.
“Its not bad, those posts aren’t set very well anymore anyway. You’re lucky any of them are standing,” Nicole said, “And count your blessings for those that aren’t anymore,”
Waverly chuckled, “How long do you think this is going to take us?”
Nicole took a bite of sandwich, mulling over her answer, “Its probably going to take us about three days just to get all that split rail out of the way. If we had two more people, we could be filling in the fence as we went, but setting split rail is a two-man job. I’m just happy I found that old tractor jack, or else we would have to dig those damn posts out,”
Waverly grimaced, “its hard as it is!”
Waverly looked over at Nicole and noticed a smudge of dirt on her face, “Hold on,” She said to Nicole, taking her napkin and wetting it in her glass of water, “you have some dirt on your face,” she said as she gently wiped it off.
Nicole could feel herself melting into Waverly’s touch, “Thank you,” Nicole said softly.
The moment passed and they headed back out to where they had left off, working in a comfortable silence. Nicole ditched her flannel, working in a white v-neck, the sun warm on her back, but a light breeze was tossing around hairs that had escaped Nicole’s braid. Waverly was working in old t-shirt from high school, a bandana tied around her head.
“You were right about these work gloves,” Waverly said as she screwed the jig to the fence post.
Nicole chuckled, “I’ve been known to know a thing or two,”
Waverly picked up a clot of dirt and threw it at Nicole. Nicole stopped and gave Waverly a look that said, “Is this the game you want to play?”
Nicole grabbed some damp earth from the recently vacated hole and ran up to Waverly, smearing it on the back of her shirt.
“You are dead, Haught,” Waverly said.
“Yeah, that’s what all the girls in high school used to say,” Nicole laughed.
Waverly cracked up, laughing so hard she ended up having to brace herself against her knees.
The mood changed as soon as they both noticed the shiny new pickup truck coming down the dirt path.
“Is that Champ?” Nicole asked.
“I sure hope so, if not it’s a stranger, and since the gate still isn’t fixed, I guess it could be,” Waverly gave Nicole a small smile.
Champ hoped out of his truck. He was wearing jeans tucked into boots and a black t-shirt tucked into his jeans. Nicole noticed his extensive tattoos, his hair gelled back and the smug look on his face.
“Hello ladies,” He came walking up, “You guys are still pulling fence posts? What’s taking so long?”
Nicole could feel herself shrink as she saw the fire in Waverly’s eyes spark, “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”
“I was merely commenting on how slow you were going,” He said, “and my gorgeous girl shouldn’t be doing all this heavy lifting,” He tried to snake his arms around her, but she batted them away.
“Excuse me? We have been working out here since 8am. Maybe we would have been going faster had you gotten here before 3pm!”
“Well I’m here now, what do you want me to do?” He shot back.
Nicole decided it was time to step in, “We have a pretty good rhythm pulling the posts, how about you load up the old posts into the truck?”
Champ made a face that Nicole couldn’t read, and then saluted her, “Sounds good boss,”
The way he said it was dripping with distain and left a bad taste in Nicole’s mouth. They went back to what they were doing, but the playful atmosphere was gone. They easiness was over.
As they worked they could hear Champ grumble about doing all the heavy lifting on his own. Nicole could feel herself rolling her eyes at him. As the sun began to wane and the breeze began to pick up, they called it a day. They drove back to the house, Nicole looked at Waverly, the tension evident in the way she held her jaw; the muscles near her hairline pulled taut.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Waverly asked.
Nicole could hear the longing in Waverly’s voice, something that she could feel, that was begging her not to leave. But Nicole was also thinking about how awkward it would be to eat dinner with the two of them.
“I cant tonight. I’ve still got a stall to muck and to feed my cat,” Nicole said, her words falling flat.
Waverly could feel her heart sink, “How about tomorrow?”
Nicole smiled, “Tomorrow,”
When they got to the house, Nicole grabbed her tools from the back of Waverly’s truck and moved them to her own.
“I’ll see you in the morning?”
“Bright and early. Get some rest tonight, you earned it,” Nicole got into her truck. There was a lingering look between them before Nicole drove away.
Champ wrapped his arms around Waverly, “Something about her rubs me the wrong way,”
“What? Like that fact that she actually knew what she was talking about with the fence?” Waverly snapped.
“Oh come on, babe. Don’t be like that,”
“Like what? Champ, we busted our asses this morning while you slept in well past noon,” Waverly gave him one last glare before heading inside. She heated up the lasagna and poured herself some whiskey. Her shoulders didn’t relax until she heard his truck pull out of the drive.
Waverly pulled out her cell phone, ignoring the notifications and opened her messages.
“Thank you so much for helping out today. And I’m sorry about my pain in the ass boyfriend,” Waverly sent to Nicole.
“I’m more than happy to help out. And I hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but is your boyfriend always so whiny?” Nicole sent back.
Waverly chuckled into her glass of whiskey, “Not usually. He was just sulking that a girl knew more about farm stuff than him,”
“Well, I’ve got some work to do, then I’m going to catch some zzzs. I’ll see you bright and early!”
“I can’t wait!” Waverly sent back.