I just noticed this thread. Funny, I wondered the same thing myself when I was writing a bit of slash a year or so ago:
From The Outland, Ch. 1 --- "The road to Lightning Flat: how many times had Jack driven that road after one of their fishing trips? Had Ennis even thought about it? Seems as though he was always too wrapped up in his own journey, getting his mind back on the job, trying to sweep away all thoughts of Jack until the next time. Tried not to think to hard on Jack barrelling through this lonesome landscape after saying goodbye, then taking the long road back to Texas, alone. And how many times over those sixteen years had Jack red-lined it to him? At least thirty, have to be, maybe more. Twelve hundred miles there, twelve hundred miles back. A figure from Ennis's schooldays drifted into his brain: the circumference of the earth is twenty-four thousand miles. So every ten trips - fuck, how many times had Jack circled the world just to be with him? How many times? And how many times had Ennis thought Jack might continue doing it? And where would it all have ended?
But it had already ended, and Jack was lying up at Lightning Flat, helpless and unconscious, and for once it was Ennis doing the miles."
Thanks for that! The Outland's a very good story! And, you're right, that passage fits in with some of the observations in this thread well.
