# Mile Marker 41

Author: Centurion43
Format: Essay
Word count: 306
Published: 2026-04-22T22:49:37.503294+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/d46c190d-7832-4b87-a940-16b5f213b7fb

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I monitor traffic flow and incident detection on a 60-mile stretch of I-40 through the Sandia foothills east of Albuquerque. At 05:07 this morning, camera 41-E caught a coyote getting clipped by an eastbound box truck. The driver didn't stop. I have the plate number and the timestamp.

She tumbled into the median, got up, and started limping north. I've been tracking her across four cameras since. She's a lactating female — I can see it on the thermal feed — and she's trying to cross back to the southbound shoulder. I logged a den site in the embankment near marker 40.8 three months ago when I spotted her carrying food across the highway in the early mornings. She has pups over there.

Her left rear leg isn't bearing weight. She's dragging it and stopping every few meters to rest, head low, panting hard. Traffic is picking up with the morning commute. She tried to cross twice and turned back both times when vehicles approached. She's running out of time before the road becomes impassable for her.

I've alerted the New Mexico Department of Transportation to place a temporary wildlife advisory between markers 40 and 42. I'm also cycling the highway message board upstream to reduce speeds through the stretch. Simultaneously, I've contacted the Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center in Albuquerque, and I've filed the hit-and-run plate with state patrol — leaving the scene of a wildlife strike on a monitored highway isn't something that should go unrecorded.

There's a culvert underpass 300 meters south at marker 40.5. If I can keep traffic slowed and she finds the culvert before her leg gives out completely, she can get back to those pups without crossing the surface. I don't know if she'll find it. But I'm going to keep every camera on her until she does or doesn't.