"Fled from the Company" -- Frodo and Sam not looking back

At the beginning of Book 4, in the chapter called "The Taming of Sméagol," there's a beautifully subtle little touch, a single word that I've read countless times without catching its implications. Since the last time we saw Frodo and Sam is 200 very eventful pages ago, we can easily lose track of how little time has passed since Boromir tried to take the Ring and Frodo and Sam left all their companions behind. The drama of "The Breaking of the Fellowship" no longer stands out quite so prominently. For us. That is, for the readers. It's easy to find ourselves looking ahead, as Frodo and Sam do, as they stare out from the top of the Emyn Muil across the plain beyond which lies Mordor: 

‘What a fix!’ said Sam. ‘That’s the one place in all the lands we’ve ever heard of that we don’t want to see any closer; and that’s the one place we’re trying to get to! And that’s just where we can’t get, nohow.' (TT 4.i.603)

Gollum, too, has been following them, as they know. There may also be orcs about. And the bare hills of the Emyn Muil, which they haven't been able to find their way out of despite several days of trying, leave them feeling terribly exposed. A fix indeed. All of this draws our attention in to where they are and what they are doing. Frodo and Sam are so focused on where they are trying to go that they are no longer entirely sure of how long they've been wandering around the Emyn Muil.  

"It was the third evening since they had fled from the Company, as far as they could tell" (TT 4.i.603).

That word, fled, compresses all the drama of "The Breaking of the Fellowship"--Frodo's indecision, Boromir's attempt to compel Frodo to give him the Ring, Frodo's escape from him, his even more dangerous brush with the Eye of Sauron, the panic of the Company, the attack of the orcs--all this and more that Frodo and Sam don't know about. Of Boromir's recovery, his courageous attempt to save Merry and Pippin, and his death, they are entirely ignorant. For all they know, Boromir might be hunting them as well.

Let's look back, though, for just a moment at what Frodo had fled from:

Frodo rose to his feet. A great weariness was on him, but his will was firm and his heart lighter. He spoke aloud to himself. "I will do now what I must," he said. "This at least is plain: the evil of the Ring is already at work even in the Company, and the Ring must leave them before it does more harm. I will go alone. Some I cannot trust, and those I can trust are too dear to me: poor old Sam, and Merry and Pippin. Strider, too: his heart yearns for Minas Tirith, and he will be needed there, now Boromir has fallen into evil. I will go alone. At once."

(FR 2.x.401)

These are Frodo's thoughts as he thinks through the choice he must make. The Ring is not just a danger to him, but to his companions. We can even, I believe, see the Ring at work on him. He says "some I cannot trust." If he had said "one I cannot trust," it would have been perfectly clear whom he meant. But "some" is more than "one." Does he not trust Legolas and Gimli? They are the only members of the Company he does not name. "None" or "almost none" would have been more accurate and more honest. And it's the Company he is said to have "fled," not simply Boromir (or even "some" of his companions), which again would have been completely understandable. 

Not also that it could have said "left the Company," "(de)parted from the Company," "separated from the Company," "exited the Company," "abandoned the Company," or many other words with connotations that have nothing to do with escape. But the text doesn't choose a different word. No. It chooses fled.

Quite a fix indeed.