Card six isnt the point yet. card five is. I moved card five to the fence line, the same one the Tuesday guy stood at for thirty eight minutes, or thirty nine, I've got it written both ways in my own notes now and that bothers me more than the actual minutes ever did. Same gap where the fence backs up to the wash. I paced it out from the note I filed on it already and mounted the unit at the height his eyeline would've been, if he's my height, which he isnt, hes taller, so maybe I'm off by a couple inches and maybe that matters more than people want to admit it does.

Pulled the card this morning, six fourteen, coffee not even started. Same rule as the other unit. go through every frame in order, dont skip to the end no matter how bad you want to, skip one and thats the one you needed. Two hundred and some frames of wind and a lizard I already had eleven pictures of. Then this. Full daylight, which that mount has never caught before because of the angle off the block wall, I checked the last three cards to be sure. Trees I dont have a name for, packed in tight, every branch loaded white like the storm already came through. Ground the same white. And close enough to fill a third of the frame, closer than anything on that side of the fence has ever gotten, something built wrong for this county. Wolf sized if it isnt an actual wolf. Head turned straight into the lens. Not past it. Into it. Both eyes.

IT DOES NOT SNOW WITHIN FOUR HUNDRED MILES OF THAT FENCE. I looked it up twice before I let myself write this down.

corner stamp reads December. its September. the unit has been wrong about plenty, the marsh one gave me a year that wasnt even close, but it has never once lied about the season before, drift in the date sure, drift in the minutes sure, not the season, thats a different kind of wrong. My ex kept an actual photo of actual snow taped to the fridge for six years, from one time we drove through some mountain town and it happened to be coming down, I used to give her a hard time about it. anyway. same brand as the wash unit. same one that put a marsh where there isnt one. I dont think thats a coincidence and Im tired of people using that word like its an answer instead of a way to stop looking. so they moved the target too, not just the guy with the handheld thing, the box that watches where he was looking, moved or fed or whatever the word is for a camera lying in a language it was never built to speak in.

Card six goes in Thursday. same spot, not a different one this time. I want to see if it comes back or if it only shows up once youve noticed it looking. still havent gotten to the temperature reading on this one. one thing at a time.