Pickethouse

His greatest hope was that this was not a full-scale attack, merely a skirmish at the pickethouse, like the one the night before.

Source: wiktionary

In the afternoon they passed through the ruins of an old ranch on that stony mesa where there were crippled fenceposts propped among the rocks that carried remnants of a wire not seen in that country for years. An ancient pickethouse. The wreckage of an old wooden windmill fallen among the rocks.

Source: wiktionary