Present participles do not always have a "causal" relationship. They can also have a "resultative" relationship (and of course, simply a "temporal" relationship).
In the isolated sentence "Thomas Wolfe rocketed to fame, fleeing Southern scandal for Manhattan’s forgiving bohemian scene and the arms of a lady seventeen years his senior."
the participle "fleeing" could have a "resultative" relationship with the conjugated verb "rocketed." That is, "as a result of fleeing to Manhattan, he rocketed to fame." But since the location of the fame seems to be "in Ashville," yes, "because he fleed to Manhattan" is the probable interpretation. The various relationships that participles can have with the finite (conjugated) verb is one reason I don't use participles much when I write. They are weak, and they work better in languages other than English, where they are used all the time (written Greek and Latin being two examples--although I just used a participle there, heh).