The death of Mangas would not go unavenged.  The Chihennes (Mimbres, Warm Springs Apaches) cried out for the vengeance their slain leader so richly deserved, and the Chokonens heard them well.  Cochise, always keen for a good battle, brought his warriors to Cook's Peak and there a rare amalgamation of Apache bands took place -- Chihennes, Bedonkohes and Cochise's ferocious Chokonens hit every American mining camp and settlement in the area, visiting uncommonly horrendous treatment upon those unfortunate enough to fall into their hands, alive or dead.  There were acts of mutilation that would spread terror throughout the southwest, virtually all of it ascribed to Cochise.  That the Apaches were avenging Mangas' death in a manner they felt to be appropriate is a fact hard to escape.  Dead soldiers were sometimes beheaded, their corpses riddled with countless lance wounds, the heart removed (it was an Apache belief that consuming the heart of a valiant enemy would transfer that man's courage and strength to his slayer). 

     Naturally news traveled far and wide even in those days, and the brutality exhibited by the infuriated Apaches found its way into every newspaper across America -- and, generously augmented, into countless official military reports.  So effusive was the reporting of such activity, in fact, that the historical view has ever since been unfairly slanted against the Indians.  It was a truly rare thing in those days to read of the suffering brought upon the Indians by the Whites, and while the treatment of Mangas Coloradas did in fact ignite a firestorm of outrage in the eastern American press, it was largely overlooked in the west and virtually never considered a justification for the Apache violence that occurred afterward.  To the public at large, Mangas Colaradas and Cochise had been cut from the same vile cloth -- two savage natives, both deserving, along with their people, of extermination.  It would take nearly a hundred years for a more balanced view to emerge in the American history books -- thanks in large part to the efforts of tireless historians like Dan Thrapp, Eve Ball and Edwin R. Sweeney, and to the appearance of a truly remarkable first person account of the Apache struggle by Jason Betzinez ("I Fought With Geronimo").

     The Apaches punished their American enemies whenever and wherever they could -- and the military was hard pressed to make much of an impression on them.  Cochise's stature grew in the eyes of his people and his legend grew in the eyes of his enemies.  He was feared like no Apache before him, and, like all great men, he became mythic in proportion -- to the point that he was barely considered mortal.